186 



Berkshires. — Agriculture versus Commerce. 



Vol. VI. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Berkshires. 



Mr. Editor, — So much has been said and 

 written about the Berkshire hoa^s, that peo- 

 ple have procured them, at a heavy price, 

 merely because they have been highly re- 

 commended in the agricultural papers of the 

 day, and because it has become fashionable 

 to have them, so that when a friend drops in, 

 why, if you have nothing else to show, you 

 must fain show your Berkshires. Now, what 

 I am going to say will no doubt raise the 

 hue and cry of the whole fraternity of Berk- 

 shire breeders. Yet I care not : what I seek 

 are facts, and these must be told, and cannot 

 be controverted. I am a subscriber to your 

 valuable paper, and as such, I have always- 

 been pleased to see that your columns are 

 open to a temperate discussion of matters and 

 things, even when men do ditfer, and this 

 fact is the cause of my troubling you for the 

 first time with my observations. This is, 

 however, digression. In the first place, then, 

 the Berkshire hogs are not what they have 

 been " cracked up to be." I have a neighbour, 

 who has given them a fair trial, to which I 

 have been an eye-witness. The experiment 

 was made in this way : — two Berkshires 

 were placed in a stable with two of the com- 

 mon breed, all of the same age, and were 

 carefully fed, and at the end of nine months 

 they were killed, and the result was, that 

 the common breed exceeded the Berkshires in 

 weight, one fifty and the other sixty pounds. 

 Experiments have been made, to my know- 

 ledge, in other instances, with similar re- 

 sults, and even with worse credit to the far- 

 famed Berkshires. They are not prolific: a 

 gentleman of my acquaintance had four 

 sows, each of which had but one pig, being 

 a loss of at least ten per cent, a head, and 

 the generality of them, I believe, do not get 

 more than four or five. The only redeeming 

 quality which they possess is, that they fatten 

 easier and quicker than some breeds of the 

 native hog; but even this is counterbalanced 

 by their diminished weight when slaughtered. 

 They may be considered an improvementon the 

 commonChinahog, and that is about all. I have 

 a number of common hogs in a pen for killing, 

 which are but nine months old, but they will 

 weigh 300 pounds a-piece by Christmas ; they 

 have been fed on nothing but the oftal of a 

 kitchen, and a run at grass, until within 

 about four weeks, since which they have been 

 fed on corn and boiled potatoes. Considering 

 their feed — for after all that makes the hog — 

 these hogs of mine will challenge competi- 

 tion with any Berkshires in the land, for 

 symmetry, heavy hams, finely turned shoul- 

 ders, thick and deep in the sides, &c., &c. I 

 purchased them when small, but not being 



aware of their qualities, I did not preserve 

 the breed ; I shall, however, endeavour to 

 get others, and by a judicious crossing, I 

 have no doubt they will make a far superior 

 hog to the Berkshire, which a number of my 

 neighbours have given up, preferring the best 

 of the common kind to them, and in so doing, 

 I think they are perfectly right. I have no 

 disposition to discourage the propagation of a 

 superior breed of animals; on the contrary, I 

 would do all in my power to further so lauda- 

 ble an object; but the Berkshire pig mania, 

 like the mulberry speculation, is upon the 

 wane, and if A. B. Allen, of Buffalo, N. Y., 

 has in his late trip to England, brought no 

 better specimen of improved animals than 

 Berkshire hogs, he might have saved himself 

 the risk of a ducking in the Atlantic for such 

 an object. R. S. B. 



Hanover township, Nortliampton Co., Pa., 

 Dec. 5, 1841. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Agriculture versus Commerce. 



Mr. F]mTOR, — On reading the article of 

 your city correspondent, G. M. in the last 

 number of the Cabinet, I have been led to the 

 conclusion that the writer is either an extra- 

 vagant liver, or that mercantile business is 

 not what it has been " cracked up to be." He 

 informs us that he invested $>15,000 in the 

 year 1827 in commercial business, and has 

 been considered ever since a successful mer- 

 chant, and that for the fifteen years he has 

 been in business, his living has consumed all 

 the profits, and that he is now not worth 

 more than when he began, if so much. 



Now, if that living which has absorbed all 

 the profits of a business with a clear capital 

 of .'$1.'3,000 has been an economical one, I 

 should say that the sooner the capital is di- 

 verted to another channel of industry, the 

 better ; and as your correspondent wishes to 

 escape the reverses incident to his present 

 business, and seems desirous to turn his at- 

 tention to the independent and noble pursuit 

 of agriculture, for which he is prepared, at 

 least in capital and theory, I would, there- 

 fore, for his information, and that of like in- 

 quirers, contrast his mercantile operations, 

 and the results as given by himself, with the 

 agricultural operations of my neighbour, S. G., 

 and their happy results worked out, through 

 an experience of 17 years, on land that in this 

 section of the country is considered nativ- 

 rally third rate. Mr. G., by close application 

 for .some years to a mechanical trade, and at 

 the same time living economically, accumu- 

 lated a considerable sum, with which he pur- 

 chased a poor farm of about 130 acres, and 

 the necessary stock for the same, which con- 

 sisted of a yoke of oxen, a horse, and two 



