REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 231 



is one of the promiuent facts of the times. The business is enlarging 

 in the South, a section hitherto mainly dependent upon the West for its 

 meat supplies. To a large extent the demands of home consumption there 

 are now supplied by home production. This southern packing has 

 not yet assumed any very imposing visible proportions, but the habit of 

 putting up pork on the farm is growing in that quarter, creating an invis- 

 ible supply, which is felt in lessening the market demand, if it does not 

 add sensibly to the published figures of production. Canada has also 

 enlarged her pork-packing operations to an extent which indicates a hope 

 of supplying her own home demand. The movement for the export of 

 fresh meat to Europe has also assumed great importance, and may result 

 in the pre-occupation of the foreign market at least for a portion of the 

 demand hitherto manifested for winter-packed pork. Our summer- 

 packed pork has found increasing fayor in the South, in Canada, and in 

 Europe. All these circumstances indicate a change in the arrangements 

 of production and marketing of preserved pork. The present aggre- 

 gates cannot be maintained unless an increased consumption can be 

 secured either in markets in which it is now disposed of or new markets 

 be opened. Questions of this character are exercising the minds of 

 intelligent operators, but none seem to apprehend any sudden or abrupt 

 change disturbing the business as it now subsists. 



During the past two seasons a new feature of the business has been 

 remarked in the receipt of a considerable number of hogs from Texas. 

 These receipts were mostly at Saint Louis, of which many were stock- 

 hogs. The latter were shipped largely to Iowa, where they are reported 

 to have developed into excellent market animals, being unusually free 

 from diseases and distempers common to hogs raised in many other sec- 

 tions. This Department estimated the number of hogs in Texas at the 

 close of 187G at 1,144,500 head. The production of swine in that State 

 has greatly increased in numbers and improved in quality. The old 

 "razor-backs" of the generation passing away are giving place to mod- 

 ern improved breeds, especially in i^orthern Texas, where hogs may be 

 found equal in value to any now raised in the Northern States. There 

 are no regular packing establishments of any magnitude in that State, 

 but farmers generally pack enough to supply their own wants and those 

 of the local markets, and send their surplus to the Korth and East. If 

 there should arise in the Southwest a shipment of hogs to the general 

 markets of the country analogous to the famous eruption of Texas cat- 

 tle, it would only realize the sanguine expectation of many leading swine- 

 raisers in Northern Texas. Quite a number of these are propagating on 

 a large scale the best strains of Poland China, Chester white, Berk- 

 shire, &c. 



Packers entered upon their operations for the last season with the 

 idea that prices must rule lower, and many dealers undertook to make 

 contracts for supplying hogs at i)rices based upon an original cost of 

 $4.50 to 85 per cental for hogs, but they were unable to buy at any such 

 prices after the winter season fully set in ; hence many of them met 

 with serious losses. As the domestic consumptive demand in the hog- 

 raising States was unusually languid in November and December, 1876, 

 and the weather unusually favorable for packing, the high prices offered 

 by packers attracted a large uuniber of hogs, causing the larger part of 

 the business at the interior points to be completed during the first half 

 of the season ; but the larger cities, excepting Louisville, Ky., continued 

 operations to the close as actively as the decreasing supply of hogs ad- 

 mitted. This continued activity was based largely upon the liberal 

 foreign export, which netted a loss to the trade, as they went out of the 



