298 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



in other words, the profit, of the vast amount of capital invested in neat- 

 stock appears in different parts of the country. Space will admit of 

 only a brief aUnsion to this point, but it is evident that throughout the 

 Northern and iliddle States it will appear very largely in the form of 

 dairy products, while in the West we shall find it more generally in the 

 form of shxughtered animals. Among the dairy-products we find by the 

 last census that we sold 235,500,599 gallons of milk in its natural form. 

 It went chiefly to supply our large towns and cities ; the figures not rep- 

 resenting the vast amount consumed at home, and thus contributing so 

 much to the comforts and the necessities of life. At the same time we 

 produced 514,092,683 pounds of butter and 53,492,153 pounds of cheese. 

 These figures, large as they are, do not represent anything like the pro- 

 duction of the country. The value of butter made in New York alone 

 in the year 1805 exceeded 860,000,000. It is probable that the cheese 

 made in factories, now numbering something like fifteen hundred, was 

 returned under some other head, and that the 53,000,000 is the amount 

 supposed to have been made in private dairies, for we know that the 

 quantity of cheese made in New York State in 1864 for sale, in addi- 

 tion to that consumed on the farm, was nearly 72,200,000 pounds, while 

 the product there, as in all the other Northern States, has been rapidly 

 progressing since that date, owing to the constant expansion of the 

 factory system and the stimulus of high prices. It is quite within 

 bounds to say that the butter product of the country is faUy 600,000,000 

 pounds, and that the cheese exceeds 200,000,000 pounds a year. 



The dairy business of this country has developed with such rapidity 

 and to such a degree of importance, with the aid of the highest intelli- 

 gence and the application of the most consummate skill, as to be regarded 

 as one of the highest triumphs of modern agriculture. Its annual prod- 

 uct amounts to over 8400,000,000, and the capital invested in it does not 

 fall short of 8700,000,000. It gives employment to a vast number of 

 hands, and contributes to the comfort and the health and the wealth of 

 all classes of the community. 



Another product of the cattle-husbandry of the country, and a most 

 important one whether considered from a financial point of' view merely, 

 or as furnishing a vast amount of food for the sustenance of mankind, 

 is represented in the value of animals slaughtered or sold for slaughter, 

 and by the census of 1870 we find this item amounts to about 8400,000,000, 

 or, more accurately, 8398,956,376, a gain in ten years of very nearly 

 $200,000,000. This, of course, includes the pork-packing business, till 

 recently confined, to a large extent, to certain western cities, but now 

 carried on as a growing business at many convenient points along our 

 great lines of railway in other parts of the country. 



Improvement in swine began less than three-quarters of a century ago. 

 The first that excited any general interest was made by some animals 

 sent from Woburn Abbey, by the Duke of Bedford, to General Wash- 

 ington. The Englishman intrusted with the care of delivering them 

 seized an opportunity to sell them on their arrival in this country, 

 but they were bred and became popular, and from all accounts tliey were 

 splendid animals, small and fine in the bone, with a deep round barrel, 

 short in the leg, feeding easily, and maturing early. They were long 

 known as the Woburn breed, and in some sections as the Bedford hog, 

 and were originated by a fortunate cross of the Chinese and the large 

 English hog of that day. They would weigh from four to seven hun- 

 dred pounds at a year old, with light offal and most excellent quality of 

 ilesh. They became very common in Maryland, Delaware, and V^irginia, 

 and they were sent to Colonel Timothy Pickering, of Massachusetts, and 



