88 



PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



always has been our principal crop, it is doubtful whether the 

 grain-harvesting machinery effected a greater saving of labor 

 than did these improvements in the implements for Corn pro- 

 duction, by means of which horse power was substituted for 

 man power. 



Live stock, horses. The Thoroughbred stallion Denmark 

 was brought into Kentucky in 1839 and became the foundation 

 of the stock of American saddle horses. It would be difficult to 

 estimate the value tp the country of an event like this ; it would 

 doubtless mount up into millions of dollars. It was during this 

 period that interest in the trotting horse began to take definite 

 shape. Heretofore this horse had been prized mainly for rac- 

 ing purposes; now its practical importance as a road horse be- 

 gan to be appreciated. "Up to 1840 the buggy was practically 

 unknown, the common mode of travel being on horseback." A 

 still more important event in the horse-breeding industry of the 

 country "was the importation into Ohio of the Percheron stal- 

 lion Louis Napoleon, from which time dates a great improve- 

 ment in the draft horse." l Though less spectacular than the 

 trotting horse, the draft horse is of even greater economic util- 

 ity, and therefore this event is also of incalculable importance. 



Hogs. Hogs continued to multiply and to flourish, nourished 

 by the corn crops of the Western prairies. Cincinnati remained 

 the center of the pork-packing industry until 1861, when it 

 was surpassed by Chicago, which city had become, by the end 

 of this period, the greatest market for agricultural products in 

 the world, being the center of the region of prairie farming. 



Abandoned farms. It was during this period also, and as a 

 result of the changes already described, that the agricultural 

 decline in New England began. As early as 1840 the aban- 

 donment of the hill farms began to attract attention. General 

 farming on these rocky hills in competition with the prairie 

 1 Bogart, Industrial History of the United States, pp. 242, 243. 



