218 



BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



they are less liable to the diseases and blemishes of the horse than any others — 

 they are rugged and of immense power, the muscular formation amply protecting 

 the weaker points, rendering them invaluable for the heavy work of our country, as 

 they are able to pull and back great weight. I have owned them that weighed 

 1,800 lbs. and could trot a full mile in four minutes. I have some now that I will 

 take ten dollars for if they can not haul four people ten miles inside the hour. 

 The crossing of these valuable animals with our American mares has been demon- 

 strated in Illinois, during the past fifteen years. The truck men of all of our 

 Eastern cities have been compelled to go to Illinois for their horses, as well as the 

 lumbermen of the North. Indiana, side by side with Illinoi.s, has allowed Eastern 

 buyers to pass through for their draft stock when they should have stopped here, 

 as freight and expenses would be less. Our farmers would find this a very remunera- 

 tive field for their consideration, and by the judicious raising of this class of draft 

 horses diversify their labor and add to their wealth much more rapidly than by the 

 old channel of wheat, corn and hogs, as the world is now a wheat field. 



The farmer has something else to do beside all the work incidental to the proper 

 cultivation of a farm. Let him be as intelligent as he may, diversify his crops as 

 he Avill, if, by bad legislation and incompetent representatives abroad, his eflTorts will 

 be wasted, as in my last dispatch to the State Department at Washington, No. 245, 

 Havre, June 14, 1881, with regard to the prohibition on the part of the French 

 Government, will show. I give you a copy of the same, in part, from the records 

 of the Consulate at Havre, which applies to international commerce between the 

 two countries. We accept almost everything from France. She rejects more 

 than 200 articles of American production, including our pork, manufactured cotton 

 goods, plated silverware, all kinds of machinery, without fixing any tarifi" whatever, 

 but simply prohibition, they alleging that so far as our pork was concerned, that 

 it was infected by trichina^, yet not a single case of sickness or death could be found 

 from that cause by the Medical Department. 



In the report I refer to I give you the following tables, which are official, show- 

 ing the increase of our exportation to France through the port of Havre, during a. 

 part of my administration of eight years, and which now, by the action of the 

 French Government, is .almost destroyed and wiped out : 



1875. 



1879. 



Cotton, bales 350,572 



Lard, pounds | 11,444,130 



1 



Salt pork, pounds . . 3,059,090 



Corn, bushels. .... 28,552 



Wheat, bushels. . . . 39.880 



i 



424,064 I 438,244 



44,609,585 j 56,240,267 



66.204,0.30 I &5,931,630 



341,704 I 936,350 



10,858,540 11,312,850 



In view of these figures, France found that the balance of trade had turned 

 against her, when, for many years, we had paid her large balances, as much as 

 $55,<jOO,000 in one year. The prohibition of salt pork and other articles by France 



