164 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



From the Acadian r^ecorder. 



Halifax, Oct. 8, 1823. 

 John Young, Esq. 



Sir— If you think the follovvins: hasty state- 

 ment on one of tlie most important branches of 

 our Industry and Trade worthy the notice of 

 the public, you are at liberty to have it insert- 

 ed in one of the newspapers. 



I have heard it asserted by persons here, 

 who have cured provisions for home consump- 

 tion that pork or beef after beina: frozen was 

 not fit for a foreign voyagfe, either dried or 

 pickled; but this is without foundation; as the 

 subjoined statement will shew the quantity ex- 

 ported by Hia'2;in«&!. Brown to the West Indies, 

 (chieflv to Kingston, Jamaica) or sold to ves- 

 sels in the W. 1. trade. All these provisions, al- 

 though purchased by them in a frozen state, 

 have given satisfaction; and in fact they never 

 bad a complaint of such as were put up by 

 themselves. 



Shipped in 1821,-12 barrels Pork ; 16 bar- 

 rels Beef; 1 cask Jowls and Shoulders dried, 

 554 lbs. 



Shipped in 1822, — 20 barrels Pork; 24 bar- 

 rels Beef; 50 Ham?, 650 lbs. 1 cask Jowls 

 and Shoulders, 690 lbs. 



Shipped in 1823, before the 9th of last April, 

 18 barrels and 8 half barrels Bnef; 1 cask 

 Hams, 343 lbs; 1 cask Jowls and Shoulders 

 475 lbs. 



State and value of the provisions cured in 

 1823, either on hand or shipped as above, be- 

 fore the 9th of last April, 



1'20 bbls. Pork, at 20s. £420 



50 sides Bacon, supposed value 80 



350 Hams, do. do. )75 



1200 lbs. rendered Lard at Od. 40 6 



48 bbls. Beef, at 603. 144 



£859 

 And in addition we received from our cus- 

 tomers, to the above date, quantities of smok- 

 ed meat, butter, lard, about G tons oatmeal, val- 

 ue £105, and homespun cloth being all the 

 growth or manufacture of the province. It 

 must be gratifying to you as well as to every 

 true friend to the agriculture of this country, 

 to learn that the provisions shipped have ave- 

 raged a profit ; which is the best reward we 

 can have, both operating ;is a stimulus to our 

 future exertions, and enabling us to give a fair 

 remunerative price to the farmer. The rate of 

 pork last winter was thought too low, but this 

 certainly is not the case, as every thing has of 

 late experienced a depreciation, "it is the inte- 

 rest of the farmer to sell as low as possible, as 

 he will thus increase the demand and be repaid 

 for his trouble by the additional quantity raised. 

 This argument will appear the more convincing 

 when he considers that pork is fed on the re- 

 fuse of the farm, which cannot in any other 

 way be so advantageously be brought to market. 

 — Should you deem it of service to the agricul- 

 ture ol the country, I have not the least objec- 

 tion to give the method we pursue in curing 

 provisions generally, and our hams have sold 

 lor higher prices than any cured in the place. 

 We have been told by several officers of the 

 army and navy that they are equal to those im- 

 ported from England ; which 1 have no doubt is 

 the case, with the exception of those that 

 might have been fed on beech nuts. If our 



farmers would take a little more pains with 

 those hogs that they allow to roam in the woods 

 during the fall, it would be much to their own 

 advantage. I have often recommended to 

 them to put such in their pens for at least four 

 months before they were killed for market ; — 

 as without this precaution they are fit neither 

 for hams nor bacon ; and it is an injury to bar- 

 relled provision to have too great a proportion 

 of this pork, which must be considered inferi- 

 or for any purpose. I do not saj', by putting 

 pigs up for the short time above stated, that it 

 would make them as good as if they were fed 

 on grain ; but I say that it would improve 

 them very much, and they would bring a better 

 price. 1 have resided in one of the principal 

 towns in Ireland a part of my life, from which 

 there is an immense quantity of provisions ex- 

 ported ; which has been a principal source of 

 raising it to its present opulence ; and there 

 can be little doubt if this business is attended to 

 properly in this town, it will be a principal 

 source of its future wealth. Since I have come 

 here, that is about seven years ago, the pork 

 and beef have been gradually improving in 

 quality, and increasing in quantity, but particu- 

 larly within the last three or four years. 

 I remain, sir, your most obdt. servt. 



WILLIAM B. HIGGINS 



REMARKS. 



This letter offers a frank and ample and, as 

 far as we are able to jiulge, a satisfactory rxpn- 

 =ition of the nature, extent and results ol tlin 

 trade in salt provisions, which' has been carried 

 on by the Concern in town, of which the wri- 

 ter is partner. It is frank, because mercantile 

 men in general affect to cast a mystery over 

 their transactions, and are little disposed to let 

 out any disclosure which may be presumed even 

 distantly to touch their interests: it is an am- 

 ple, because it sets forth the results of his expe- 

 rience for the whole three years, during which 

 the curing of beef and pork has engaged his at- 

 tention : — and it is satisfactory, because it lets 

 us into the knowledge of the very points, on 

 which we were most solicitous to gain informa- 

 tion — that frozen beef and pork can be cured 

 without any detriment to their quality or pow- 

 er of preservation on a foreign voyage, and that 

 this new trade can be conducted in Halifax, so 

 as to yield a profit on the capital embarked 

 in it. 



It is, we believe, in the recollection of the 

 public, that the Provincial Society, for the last 

 two year-, had strenuously recommended to the 

 legislature to offer certain premium?, in order 

 to stir up individuals towards the commence- 

 ment of this trade; because they considered it 

 essential to the success of our agriculture, to 

 prevent the great and ominous depression which 

 regularly occurs about this season of the year — 

 Tolerably fair beef selling at 1 l-2d. per pound 

 was no very delightful spectacle to such as took 

 an interest in our rural affairs, and at the time of 

 writing this,a repetition of the same ruinous sales 

 is occurring at auction. This letter then comes 

 in most opportunely to stay the progress of this 

 prodigious evil, which operates alike against 

 the grower and consumer. That the poorer 

 class of farmers are injured by such low prices 

 recurring annually at the close of the graz- 

 ing season is quite obvious ; because they are 



in no condition to keep up their stock, untf 

 the gradual demand of winter shall take 

 off their hands at a profit, and the necessity li ) 

 their circumstances thus imposes on them a hej( s 

 vy and vexatious sacrifice. But even to tbj 1 

 consumer it is not advantageous to have price 

 loo seriously disturbed — remarkably low at oni 

 time and proportionably high at another — Sucl 

 great variation in the commercial balance occa 

 sions waste and extravagance at the descending 

 and the exercise of a penurious parsimony at tlu 

 ascending scale — a slate of things found, fron 

 long and uniform experience, to be accompanl 

 ed with any thing but benefit to the middlinj 

 and inferior orders, the chiefand great consum 

 ers in every community. 



There are only two ways in which a remed 

 can be brought to this mischief. The first is ii 

 the hand of the farmer, and sooner or later hi 

 inu^t come to employ it in his own behalf. Hi 

 must extend the cultivation of his green crop 

 — turnips and potatoes — with the intent of ena 

 bling him to keep back his cattle at the begin 

 ning of winter, and to sell them off according t 

 the nature and increase of the demand. In tbi 

 case, the supplv would never be over abundant 

 and the market would be maintained at a remq 

 nerative level. The other remedy lies in thi 

 salt provision trade. — Were a few of our mer 

 chants to engage in it heartily, and to buy fo 

 the purpose of export, the redundancy of bee 

 in November, December and January, woul 

 be carried off; and thus open a new, and I 

 all appearance, a profitable branch of trade.- 

 For some years past the main purchasers ba»i 

 always been the army contractors who bav 

 had it in their power to regulate, in a grea 

 measure, the price ; and this want of compel 

 lion has been felt as a grievance, and been rej 

 resented by some as causing the great deprei 

 sion about which we have heard such loud an 

 reiterated murmurs. 



In estimating the value of different agricui 

 tural produce, there seems to be a standard c 

 universal application, and which was illustratei 

 in the last agricultural report delivered here 

 before the society, at the meeting of the legis 

 lature. This standard consists in a certain giv 

 en ratio between the price of flour, butche 

 meat and butter — so that whatever be the prici 

 of the first, the other two should advance in ; 

 geometrical series — If flour be at 2d. a lb. bee 

 should be at 4d. and butter at 8d. — and so inva. 

 riable are these proportions in all countries 

 where trade is permitted to act freely, thai 

 lliey are maintained in Britain, in the differeol 

 European kingdoms, and as might have been et 

 pected also, in the American States. In the New 

 England Farmer — a recent paper established It 

 Boston, the editor, soon after the publication oi 

 the last agricultural report here, adverted to 

 the rule laid down in it, and found that it talliei 

 exactly with the existing prices in those States 

 of the Union to which he at that time extended 

 his examination. Th« rule therefore may be 

 assumed as absolute, and of universal applica- 

 bility; and it becomes a curious question ID 

 what manner, and from what cause, the propo^ 

 tion in butcher-meat only, should be disturbed 

 here every fall — for butter never sinks below 

 the proper standard : flour at 32s. 8d. per ba* 

 rel gives the lb. at 2d, and at 40s. lOd. at S^id.i- 

 and as these are fair quotations of the different 

 qualities in the market, the medium betweeo 



