358 Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 



hogs than over any other one thing in the hog trade. He states that 

 the amount of trimming necessary to remove the gristle (shields) on 

 the shoulders and belly (sides) of the stag explains the dockage of stags. 

 He mentions that alfalfa, grass, and soft corn will make even barrows 

 look like "pigg3^" sows. He also states, "There has been many an 

 instance recorded at the Sioux City market where the buyer has got 

 the committee on hog dockage together, and lo and behold, when he 

 returned he found that the sows in dispute had farrowed their pigs." 



The Pork- Packing Industry 



During the first half of the nineteenth century, Cincinnati was the 

 leading pork-packing center of this continent, and this position was 

 maintained until 1863, at which time Chicago took the lead. One by 

 one, other western cities have crowded ahead of Cincinnati until now 

 her rank is eleventh in the list of American hog-packing centers. That 

 Cincinnati's supremacy was not a permanent one was due to the fact 

 that until the West was settled, live-stock conditions were very un- 

 stable, and the logical packing center in 1850 was found to be too far 

 to the east of the center of hog production as it existed twenty years 

 later. With the settling of the corn belt and the rapid extension of 

 the hog's domain to the westward, Chicago was enabled, by virtue of 

 her location and direct railway connections with the heart of the corn 

 belt, to gain and hold supremacy as a pork-packing center. The evolu- 

 tion of the gigantic pork-packing business of the United States may be 

 told in brief by first reviewing the growth and development of the busi- 

 ness at Cincinnati, and then following it to Chicago at the close of the 

 Civil War. 



Early packing at Cincinnati. ^ — In 1833 Cincinnati packed 85,000 

 hogs. Five years later the number packed in the year had risen to 

 182,000 head. In 1843 no less than 250,000 hogs were consumed by 

 the numerous packing establishments then doing a thriving business at 

 Cincinnati, and the town was dubbed "Porkopolis," which name was 

 formerly in general use, but is now nearly obsolete. Cincinnati 

 slaughtered 360,000 hogs for packing purposes in 1853, and in 1863 the 

 highest mark was reached, the number that year being 608,457. The 

 demands of the army were largely accountable for the large number 

 packed during the last mentioned year. The average price of hogs 

 at Cincinnati was $5.75 in 1855, $6.21 in 1860, and $3.28 in 1862, but 

 the Civil War caused a rise to $14.62 in 1865, followed by a decline to 

 $11.97 in 1866 and to $6.95 in 1867. Present-day pork producers who 



iH. D. Emery: Hogs and Pork Packing in the West, U. S. Dept. Agr. An. 

 Rpt., 1863; Charles Cist: The Hog and Its Products, U. S. Dept. Agr. An. Rpt., 

 1866. 



