254 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
dall, and bruised animal, worried by long travel, and sore in every 
quarter from kicks and pounding, is wholesome food. 
The whole subject of the meat supplies of this continent, the grazing 
interest, the drovers’ trade, its relations to railroads, and the butchering 
and sale of meats have received very little of the attention of law-makers 
or of organizing talent in any ferm. In some respects these things can be 
left to the working of the great laws of traffic, bit traffic is guided 
solely by immediate self interest; it is incapable of far-sighted wis- 
dom; it is blind to the essential and permanent good of the greatest 
nuinber. There are two steps which the Government can take without 
_the least impropriety, and which, in concluding tiris paper, we venture to_ 
urge upon the attention of Congress. 
1, The appointment of a commission to examime into the subject of the 
transportation of live animals, to ferret out its abuses, and suggest 
modes by which those abuses and the mischief they create may be mit- 
igated or wholly removed. 
2. The offering of a special prize of honor te the inventor who will 
perfect and carry into practice the best method for the transportation 
of dressed meats over long distances,and at all seasons. } 
Every branch of this general subject—that of feeding one section of 
the country from the surplus of another section—gathers importance with 
the lapse of every year and the building of every new east-and-west 
road. A few years ago the eggs of New York City were laid in the 
barus of New. Jersey and Peunsylvania; to-day, Ohio is doing more than 
any other State to meet that demand, and eggs are forwarded by the barrel 
from Kentucky, Tennessee, and {ndiana. The tubs of batterin Fulton 
or Market-street market may be made from the grasses of Orange, - 
Herkimer, or Delaware County, but quite probably they came from 
Wisconsin or Kansas. The increase of railroads, the addition of through 
lines, and the increasing speed of all thé trains, are year by year working 
important changes in market systems. The farmer was once but a day’s 
drive by horse from the city where his surplus was consumed; now he 
is five hundred miles away; in another decade he will be a thousand 
miles away; yet in some respects he is nearer than he was when the 
spires of his market-town could be seen from the hill back of his house. 
Marketing thus grows into a special trade, requiring special confidences 
with railroad men aud a knewledge of cities that the werking farmer 
has neither the time nor the tact to acquire. On the other hand, the 
crowds in great towus who must buy at the nearest store, and must buy 
a cheap article no matter how it looks or smells, will constantly 
increase; this increase is inseparable from a high and many-sided civiliza- 
tion such as ours.. From this situation the perpetual and growing demand 
is that the preducer be, in every sense, brought nearer the consumer, 
and the consumer be brought into cleser and more natural relations with 
the producer. A wise and. sagacious government will give its closest 
attention to the solution of this problem. . 
The efforts of this Department, through which the attention of the 
Government was first called to the dangers of the splenic fever derived 
from southern cattle, and to the spread of the pleuro-pneumonia, as well 
as to the losses incurred by neglect and inhumane exposure of farm 
stock, will still be directed to the improvement of cattle transportation 
and the abundant supply of healthful meats at fair prices to the dwellers 
in American cities. It is a sabject of national importance, and one de- 
manding deliberate investigation, and such general legislation as may 
be required to give efficiency to practical reforms in cattle transporta- 
tion and meat supply. 
