MUTTON MARKET OP UNITED STATES. 83 



thing tlierefore marks it as one of the most valuable articles 

 of human consumption ; and where its use is once established, 

 there is no one which finds a steadier demand or more 

 uniformly remunerating prices. 



In England mutton is the favorite animal food from the 

 peer to the peasant — the former preferring the choicer 

 qualities as a matter of taste, the latter the cheaper and fatter 

 ones as a matter of economy. A pound of Leicester mutton 

 which has an external coating of fat as thick as that on well 

 fattened pork, will go as far to support life as a pound of pork, 

 eaten simply in the condition of cooked meat ; and eaten 

 partly as meat and used partly to convert vegetables into 

 soups having the flavor and to some extent the nutritive 

 qualities of meat, it will not only produce more palatable 

 nutriment than the pork, but nutriment capable of being 

 distributed so as to supply more wants. 



Thirty or forty years ago but very little mutton was 

 consumed in the United States. Our people had not learned 

 to eat it. Colonizing a new country covered with forests 

 containing animals that prey on sheep, and in which the 

 necpssary labor for guarding them was scarce and high, our 

 forefathers kept only enough to meet pressing wants for wool 

 for household uses. Few were used for food, and the early 

 sheep of our country did not constitute very palatable food. 

 Beef and pork were more easily grown and better relished. 

 This state of things continued luitil mutton became a stranger 

 to American tables. When at length the country became 

 better adapted to the production of sheep, there was no call 

 for mutton. I can myself remember when it was rarely seen 

 and never habitually used on the table, except perhaps in 

 cheap school boarding-houses of the "Dotheboy'sHall" order. 

 This prejudice continued until the comparatively recent 

 general introduction of the unproved English mutton sheep — 

 and xmXW. fashion in cities, for once, inaugurated a great and 

 useful change in the public taste. Some of the earlier preju- 

 dices yet Imger among our rural population; yet the same 

 change is making its way, not slowly, into the country. The 

 first quality of mutton now commands a higher price in our 



on this subject: "English chemists and philosophers, by a series of careful experi- 

 ments, find that 100 lbs. of beef, in boiling, lose 26M lbs., in roasting, 32 lbs., and in 

 baking 30 lbs. by eTaporation and loss of soluble matter, juices, water and fat. Mutton 

 lost by boiling 21 lbs., and by roasting 24 lbs. ; or in another form of statement, a leg of 

 mutton costing raw, 15 cents, would cost boiled and prepared for the table, 18)^ cents 

 a pound ; boiled fresh beef would, at the same price, cost 19M cents per pound, sirloin 

 of beef raw, at 16K cents, costs roasted 24 cents, while a leg of mutton at 15 cents, 

 would cost roasted only 22 cents." 



