No. 3. 



The Berkshires. — The Beet CuUure. 



87 



be eventually for my good, that 1 have been 

 chastened : at least, it is my intention to try 

 and see if I cannot make a virtue out of my 

 necessity. I have, therefore, renewed my sub- 

 scription for the Cabinet, and hope never 

 more to go astray. 



A SuBscEiBEB Anew. 



Philadelphia, Aug. 29, 1841. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 The Berkshires. 



In the midst of all kinds of conflicting tes- 

 timony on the all-absorbing subject of Hog- 

 breeding, and which has most assuredly been 

 prosecuted much farther than the nature of 

 the business demanded, wc are quite refresh- 

 ed by the following very simple and judicious 

 remarks by the author of " The American 

 Swine-breeder," H. W. Elsworth, Boston, 

 which go to show very clearly how much 

 money, time and useless confabulation might 

 have been saved, if we could only have pre- 

 vailed upon ourselves to look the animal 

 calmly in the face, and take his dimensions 

 and weight, his probabilities and propensities 

 into account, without throwing ourselves into 

 a state of fever ! But in this, as in many 

 other things, we Americans delight to go the 

 whole Hog or nothing. The excellent writer 

 says — 



" Berkshires are a production of art, not 

 of nature ,- and, unless the same art is used 

 to preserve them that was exercised to pro- 

 duce them, they will retrograde much faster 

 than they advanced. The breeder's rule, 

 upon which all his operations are founded, is, 

 that like begets like ; he therefore carefully 

 examines every litter, and where he finds a 

 remarkably fine individual, he sets him or her 

 aside to breed from. This, together with ju- 

 dicious crossing, is the origin of every im- 

 proved breed ; but no stock of hogs, or cattle, 

 or anything else, has yet been brought to 

 such perfection that all the individuals pro- 

 duced are good and worthy of being made 

 breeders. 



" Why, then, it may be asked, cannot any 

 individual take the native stock of a country, 

 and go on to improve it for himself by judi- 

 cious selection"! So he may; but he will 

 find it much cheaper to purchase a hog, which, 

 by the care of others, has already been ad- 

 vanced to a certain state, to begin his cross- 

 ing with, than to wait for the advancement 

 to that point of his unimproved stock. No 

 Stock, in my opinion, affords finer individuals 

 for this purpose than the Berkshire. But I 

 can pick out many individuals from this or 

 any other stock, totally unsuitedfor the pur- 

 pose of improving any breed. What is the 

 Berkshire valuable for^ Simply because it 

 contains a greater number of individuals than 



usual of that peculiarity of anatomy valued 

 by the judicious raiser of hogs. But suppose 

 an individual, as there must always be thou- 

 sands, does not posses^ that peculiar anatomy, 

 does it avail him, or you, who are his owner, 

 that his mother, or brother, or third cousin 

 does] It is true, that if two individuals pos- 

 sess equal points themselves, he will be pre- 

 ferred whose kindred or blood, is most cele- 

 brated; and this, because animals not only 

 breed after themselves, but sometimes, also, 

 after their progenitors. But always give pre- 

 ference to propinquity of good points; that 

 is, prefer to have them in the immediate to 

 the remote progenitor. Yet, regardless of 

 this simple truth, we daily see our people 

 sending their money from home, purchasing 

 anything, no matter how indifferent in form, 

 provided it may have been the offspring of a 

 Berkshire sow. Now I would rather pay 

 fifty dollars for a good selection, than ten for 

 a pair taken at haphazard," Scs. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 The Beet Culture. 



Sir, — Your correspondent B., of Chester co., 

 in the last No. of the Cabinet, appears in a bad 

 fix with his Sugar Beets. I strongly suspect 

 that his ill-success has arisen mainly from the 

 circumstance of having lost the fortnight, of 

 which he makes mention, at the commence- 

 ment of the season, and before the cultivation 

 of the unfortunate crop was entered upon — a 

 very common case, and I have scarcely ever 

 known a man under such circumstances able 

 to catch up until Christmas — that is, at the 

 end of the year; nay, I have known many 

 who have been compelled to throw out a por- 

 tion of their tillage-land for a season to be 

 able to correct the evil — one in particular, 

 who was under the necessity of throwing 

 twenty acres of fallow over to the next year, 

 after having worked it the greater part of 

 the summer for wheat, consoling himself with 

 the hope that he should find a double crop on 

 a two-years' fallow ; but after expending a 

 double portion of labour in the next year's 

 ploughing and working, occasioned by a ten- 

 fold crop of weeds which had been suffered 

 to mature their seeds on the first year's fal- 

 low, where they had the whole soil to them- 

 selves, he found himself wofully disappo'nted. 



But surely, it could not require the whole 

 strength of the farm for a fortnight to give a 

 hoeing to two acres of beets, at the com- 

 mencement of harvest! Why, every weed 

 might have been removed by the thumb and 

 finger in less time than that : no wonder that 

 the manager got sun-struck — the only won- 

 der is, that all had not in that time been 

 melted down into soap and candles ! I am 

 prepared to admit that the cultivation of the 



