582 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



auj-thing — eveu potatoes, to oat, fills his belly 

 every day with the eighth part of his day's eara- 

 ings, paid him in baud and in hard mouej-.* — 

 These neatly made, small boned, native bom 

 cattle from the hill country are said to make 

 sweeter and moi-e palatable beef than the larger 

 Durham, or other artificial breeds of imported 

 origin. 



A carions feature in this branch of industry is 

 its natural and economical alliance with the 

 Pork business. The herd of bullocks goes be- 

 fore, ^vith one of swine — unclean beasts as they 

 are — to follow after and clean up what has not 

 been all eaten or thoroughly digested by their 

 illustrious predecessors. No wonder the He- 

 brews detested them so heartily that they could 

 not be brought to pronounce their name — so 

 that the word hog is nowhere to be found, even 

 in Alexander Cruden's Complete Concord- 

 ance to the Old and New Testaments. No won- 

 der that the resolute old Eleazar — when seized 

 by the slaves of Antiochus Epiphane.s, and his 

 month wrenched open to force him to taste, or 

 pretend to taste, swine's flesh — should have 

 kicked and squalled, and chosen rather to suffer 

 death than break the law of his God, as he un- 

 derstood it, and so "give offence to the weaker 

 people of his nations." Such manly fortitude 

 in resisting temptation to break the Law and 

 the Constitution is admirable in all rulers — and 

 tlie more exalted the more so, seeing how true 

 it is tbat, the higher the post of the functionary, 

 the more catching and pernicious is anj- bad ex- 

 ample he may set, either in morals or politics ; 

 and yet a right hungrj' horseback-and-saddle- 

 bags wayfarer, who should chance to come 

 athwart a group of drovers, reclining near a cool 

 spring, under the shade of a magnificent sugar- 

 coaple, on the great thoroughfare between Ken- 

 tacky and New-York, with their ash-cake and 

 pan of fried bacon, might not carry his antipa- 

 thy to swine's flesh quite so far as did old Father 

 Eleazar. — But chacitn a son gout — in Gastron- 

 omy, at least. Let us return to the practical 

 connection between feeding bullocks and fat- 

 tening hogs. 



In November, when the supply of grass be- 

 gins to decline, the grazier begins to feed his 

 com to his cattle — stalk, blade, grain and all to- 

 gether. The com which he gives them is never 

 husked, or shucked, as it is sometimes called. — 

 We should have elsewhere stated that the gra- 

 zier often sends his agent up into tho-se Eastern 

 Counties to buy his stock cattle. 



When the cattle have eaten what they will 

 of the com, thus thrown to them in its nat- 



* Those who dig up the old pavements in New- 

 York now get $1 per day. The pavers get $1 37^ ; 

 and the work is so done as to require to be re-done 

 not less than once a year. 



(1242) 



ural, rough state, the hogs are let into the field, 

 through a " slip gap," to glean the remainder. 

 This is found sufficient to sustain hogs — giving 

 from 1| to 2 hogs, weighing {gross weight) from 

 150 to 200 pounds each, at twelve months old, 

 for each bullock. So that the grass and corn 

 that graze and fatten 30 bullocks, will do the 

 same for from 4.5 to 60 hogs, averaging 175 

 pounds each. 



From the 20th of Febniary to the 1st of March, 

 when both are fat, they begin, as before stated, 

 to move on their way, to supplj- the great hives 

 of non-agricultural producers, that swann in the 

 Atlantic Cities — swarms that could not subsist 

 without the produce of the land, to work up, and 

 transport, and live upon ; but without whom the 

 agriculturist could lire, but could not accumu- 

 late or prosper. Thus has Providence ordained 

 that society should flourish by a reciprocal de- 

 pendence of its different classes. Yet it always 

 happens that the congregated and parasitical 

 classes contrive to draw their life's blood from 

 those who are spread over and doing the work 

 of the country — producing its bread and its 

 meat — all the while making them believe that 

 they are feeding them. Variety of classes and 

 division of labor tend to mutual benefit and the 

 highest improvement in all the arts ; but, in the 

 action of the laws and the burdens of the Gov- 

 ernment, favor should be shown in proportion 

 to the number and the ntility of each. " Ren- 

 der unto Ccesar the things u-hich are Casar's." 



It behooves the landholder tt) entertain a be- 

 coming jealousy of the non-producing classes — 

 for it is in the nature of things that power should 

 steal from the many to the few. See already 

 how it has been contrived to have the Military 

 elevated in the public sentiment, and favored 

 by the legislation of the countrj', above the Civil, 

 or the producing and the tax-paying portion of 

 the community ! and see, too, how besides, no in- 

 considerable portion of those ^^'ho are educated 

 out of the common treasure of the Nation, in the 

 Military Schools, are selected expressly as being 

 the descendants of men who have seen some ser- 

 vice in fields of battle; but who ever heard of the 

 appointment, to either of these Military Schools, 

 of the son of a farmer, on the ground that the 

 father had set to the whole country a salutary 

 example of extraordinary indu.strj' and intelli- 

 gence in the confessedly most useful of all human 

 emplo3-ments ? Well, back to our cattle. 



On their way to be slaughtered, the hogs 

 travel at the rate of a mile a day slower than 

 the herd of bullocks ; so that, by the time they 

 arrive at their common halting place for the 

 night, the cattle have eaten their com and hay. 

 Of the first, they will eat what is equal to from 

 a peck to a half bushel per daj' — taking one- 

 third of their allowance in the morning, and the 

 residue at night. The cattle, having thus satis- 



