458 
and the withdrawal of workers from rural to other industrial arts would not only 
greatly facilitate the creation of wealth, but would stimulate invention, labor-savying 
skill, and industry in agriculture. ; 
Having reached the conclusion that corn-production is not declining, and that the 
supply of wheat has increased 50 per cent., what can we say as to the meat-supply 
and the numbers of horses? As to the latter, it is not found, according to the fears 
of too conservative farmers of a former generation, that multiplying railroads tends 
to diminish the use of horses. More horses are now used in taking people to the train 
than were formerly required to perform the whole journey. The census reports only 
the horses of the farm, without reference to those of the town or city; but, for com- 
parison, taking the numbers in proportion to population, there were nearly twenty to 
each one hundred people in 1850, quite twenty in 1860, and, notwithstanding the 
waste of the war, eighteen in 1870. The increase since has at least equaled the ad- 
vance in population. Coming to cattle, while we know that the numbers in the 
census are too low, especially for Texas, California, and the Territories, we may use 
them for comparative purposes. From 1850 to 1860, we find the number of all kinds 
of cattle slightly increasing from 77 to 81 to each hundred of the population, and then 
witness a decline to 62 in 1870. Since that date the numbers have increased, but not 
materially faster than the population. The consumption in the war was a prominent 
cause of the decline, and a growing preference to horses as a substitute for working- 
oxen tended to further reduction. The supply of sheep per capita was somewhat 
greater in 1870 than in 1860, the ratio rising from 70 to 73, but less than in 1850, when 
there were 93 per hundred of population. But the most marked decline in supply has 
been in swine; the figures in these decennial periods being respectively 129, 105, and 
65. The tendency is to still further decline in some of the principal swine-districts. 
There is another statistical point of especial interest in this connection. While 
numbers have declined in proportion to population, the value of all farm-animals 
divided among the population would give about $24 per head in 1850, $34 in 1860, and 
$44 in 1870. Not only has scarcity increased the value, but improvement in breeds 
has added size and weight, so that with smaller relative numbers we are able to feed 
our people and ship more beef and pork and lard than ever. Here is food for reflec- 
tion. Here is the cause of advancing prices of beef and pork. And it is fortunate 
that increase in meat-production is consonant with a higher and more intensive agri- 
culture; that it is, in fact, one of the essential conditions of such improvement. And 
if we can act upon the suggestion of Mr. Harris, in his address last evening, and 
perfect breeds of meat-producers that shall be able to assimilate a larger proportion of 
the fat-and-meat producing elements contained in the food supplied, we shall hasten 
the adoption of a system of agriculture that shall be restorative and not exhaustive. 
We thus learn from statistics that grain-growing exclusively, though remunerative 
as a temporary expedient, is a speculation, and not true farming. Land in the prairies 
worth $50 per acre is bought for $5, and its true value is discounted in installments ; 
i. e., the soil is plundered piecemeal, and converted into wheat and cash to furnish 
means for fencing and house-building, and to supply capital to the pioneer farmer. In 
this point of view, it has been remunerative as a pioneer expedient; but, with a farm 
equipped for the work of a long future, the superior profit of a restorative system, in 
which domestic animals fill an important part, cannot be questioned, either in the 
deep prairies of Illinois or the rich bottoms of the Missouri Valley. 
CHEMICAL MEMORANDA. 
By Wit~it1am McMurtTrIi£, CHEMIST. 
BAT GUANO.—In addition to the samples of this important product 
sent to the Department by J. A. V. Pue, Bandera, Texas, this gentleman 
has forwarded another sample from a different cave, which our analysis 
has proved to be of greater value than any we have yet analyzed. There 
are, doubtless, very many deposits of great extent, of which we have 
been unable to obtain any knowledge, that will be as valuable as 
that represented by this sample. This one, like others of high grade, 
contained broken scales of insects, and is in excellent condition for direct 
application to the soil. 
