Alt 
in their kind. We have now the Bakewell, or Leicester, the Cotswold, and Lincoln, 
all of the most valuable long-wool varieties. We have also the Southdown, the 
Shropshire and Oxford Downs of the middle wools, abundant in fleece, massive in the 
quantity and delicious in the excellence of their flesh, so that Americans may, within 
the next decade or two, become, as they have never yet become, a partially mutton- 
consuming people, and ship thousands of dressed carcasses to Britain, as is now done 
with our fresh beef. 
SWINE. 
In the category of other domestic animals brought into our country with the early 
immigrants came also this animal indispensable for domestic consumption, constituting 
an important item in our exports abroad. From the earliest history, swine have been 
connected with farm-husbandry, as well as untamed rangers of the forest, in which 
latter condition they even now exist in some of the uncultivated sections of the east- 
ern continent. To what degree of perfection, or even improvement, they were cultivated 
in ancient times, history gives us little or no account; but we do know that for many 
years previous to the present century, and for some years since, the common swine of 
the United States were inferior in the quality of their flesh, ungainly in form, slow in 
arriving at maturity, and repulsive in almost every phase of their character as com- 
panions to our other agricultural stock. Yet in Eastern Asia, and in portions of Eu- 
rope, perhaps for a century or more past, considerable advances had been made in the 
improvement of their domestic swine, as a few years after the revolutionary war, im- 
portations of improved animals of the kind were introduced into our country, and 
among them we have accounts that General Washington had some of them which 
were sent over as a present to him at Mount Vernon, from England. Early in the 
present century, also, the East India merchants of Massachusetts and New York im- 
ported some fine specimens from China and India, which were afterward considerably 
crossed on the common stocks of our Eastern States, and much improved them both in 
the qualities of their flesh and domestic habits. Still, until within the last fifty, or 
even forty years, the mass of our farmers throughout the country, and more particu- 
larly in the Western States, bred and reared swine of ordinary character, answering, to 
be sure, the main requirements of consumable flesh, but inferior in its high condition 
to that now found in our markets, either for domestic consumption or exportation. 
The various foreign breeds to which we are indebted for our present swine improve- 
ment are too numerous to mention, and their history in detail, although quite interest- 
ing, is too long to narrate, but the agricultural literature of our several States will fully 
inform all inquirers of their various progress and present status. As an evidence of 
the present interest in their production and improvement, an association of swine- 
breeders has recently been formed, whose headquarters are at Springfield, Ill. They 
have issued a swine herd-book for the Berkshire breed, after the style of the various 
cattle herd-books, in which their genealogy and high excellences are chronicled. Not 
that we would exalt this particular breed above others, perhaps equally meritorious, 
but to signalize the enterprise of our farmers,and the magnitude of the pork and 
lard-producing interest of our country, amounting to hundreds of millions of dol- 
lars annually. The swine of the United States now consume a great share of the 
product of the almost illimitable corn fields of our Western and upper Southern 
States, thus converting a great portion of that valuable grain into a portable com- 
modity, which, without them, would ,be either a drug, or an almost inconvertible 
staple of their agriculture. We may, in view of the progress we have made in swine 
cultivation and improvement, placé the United States superior to that of any other 
country in the world. 
POULTRY. 
Todescend to asmalier, yet quite indispensable, item of food consumption in our house- 
holds, as well as ornamental accompaniments of domestic life, the varieties of our poultry 
may welland profitably be mentioned. They, too, (the turkey excepted,) came over with 
the early settlers of our American colonies, and have been the intimate associates of 
our peopleever since. They constitute an important part of the luxury of our tables, both 
in their flesh and eggs, the aggregate commercial value of which, were it accurately 
reckoned, amounts to millions of dollars annually. The poultry literature of our 
country is voiuminous, both in books and various agricultural periodicals, to which 
those in search of information may readily refer. As a general remark, it may suffice 
to say that importations from foreign countries, of various breeds of them, have been 
frequent and of rare quality, both in the estimation of the economist who propagates 
them for profit, as well as the amateur, for the gratification of his taste in their selection 
and exhibition. Poultry societies have become numerous throughout the land, and the 
annual exhibitions of their various specimens have been marvelous in excellence, beauty, 
. 
