86 



A larfie portion of this is consumed in tliis country -where Jcavs 

 are scarce and Mahometans unknown. A certain amount, how- 

 ever, is carried abroad to benefit trade and navigation, and make 

 happy the people of other lands. In 1857, the quantity oi' bacon, 

 in the shape of hams and middlings, exported from the United 

 States, was 44,000,000 of pounds, valued at 4,500,000 dollars ; 

 of pork, salted and packed, 144,292 barrels and half barrels, 

 valued at 2,800,000 dollars ; of lard, 40,000,000 of pounds valued 

 at five millions of dollars — making an aggregate of property to 

 the value of 12,500,000 dollars in the shape of bacon, pork and 

 lard exported to foreign countries ! So much for the commercial 

 value of the hog. ****** 



And it is a well known, but melancholy fact, and your Committee 

 allude to it with feelings of mortification and regret, that in our 

 beloved Commonwealth of Massachusetts the number of ho(/s — 

 (juadriipeds, covered with bristles — has been diminisldng from 

 year to year ! In 1845, the number of swine in this State was 

 104,740, valued at about 800,000 dollars. In 1855, the number 

 was reduced to 51,113, valued at 400,000 dollars, — a reduction 

 of fifty per cent in ten years ! 



Your Committee have not dared to investigate this matter 

 further, fearing and believing that the reduction is still going on. 

 This is truly a sad state of things, and calls for the prompt and 

 vigorous, if not exclusive action of all agricultural societies in the 

 Commonwealth. 



It will appear from what we have said that the subject of pork 

 is not only replete with unctuousness, but is one of surprising 

 weight and magnitude. The hog is an animal which deserves to 

 be treated with respect and handled Avith tenderness. Although 

 there may be gammon about him, and he is sometimes sf2/-led a 

 boar, there is much solid substance in his composition, and abun- 

 dance of bottom. He is a friend to equal rights, so long as he is 

 deprived of the lion's share of the spoils ; he is a friend to the 

 weak and an enemy to the strong, so long as he is kept down among 

 the weaker party ; and although sometimes a blade republican in ap- 

 pearance, he is a red republican in principle, — a Jacobin of the 

 old French school, — so long as he is identified with the vulgar 

 swinish multitude. But, like ambitious human beings, when he 

 succeeds in getting to the top of the ladder — or, to speak more 

 correctly, to the head of the trough, and can put both of his feet 

 within, riot on good things and triumph over his fellows, he evinces 

 little gratitude, but a gj-eat deal of greediness. Forgetting his 

 democratic proclivities and his groveling propensities, he cocks his 

 snout in the air, in the true aristocratic style, and would even bar- 

 ter his republic for a monarchy, banish Otho the First from his 

 throne, and become the real bona-fide king of grease. * * 



