12 
F. 8. BILLINGS. 
the west, yet no one well acquainted with the circumstances 
would, I think, assert that the hygienic conditions under which 
our western swine are raised, are not superior to those of the 
famed “ home-fed ” porkers of the small New England farmer, 
raised, as they only too often are, in dark, loathsome, poorly ven¬ 
tilated pens, only too frequently under stables, with the house- 
vaults and sink-drains emptying into them. 
Again, whoever has been upon a tour of observation among 
the agricultural districts of Germany, must have been most for¬ 
cibly struck with the absurd non-hygienic conditions under which, 
not only hogs, but the majority of the domestic animals are raised 
and surrounded, in comparison with those of our own country, es¬ 
pecially of the stock-raising west. 
It is also of the greatest importance to statistically settle by 
means of a great number of exact examinations at the hands of 
competent and strictly honest observers, whether this great per¬ 
centage of trichin-infected hogs, is to be found among those 
fattened under the more unfavorable conditions offered by the 
large western distilleries, in comparison with those offered by the 
open-air feeding, limited almost entirely to corn, of the western 
farmer. 
This question of trichin-infection of American pork is one, 
which, at the present, may fail of a proper appreciation by the 
American people and the respective State Governments. Yet, 
it is one of great national importance, from an economical point 
of view. 
The rigid inspection which has been begun, and is in the future 
to be still more rigidly executed ; the numerous cases of in¬ 
fected American pork which are generally being reported in con¬ 
tinental, especially German papers, and which are always noticed 
by those of Britain; the too numerous cases of disease among 
human beings traced to the same, are gradually serving as an 
“ embargo,” or at least, as a heavy u import duty,” which can but 
influence our foreign markets in this immense American agricul¬ 
tural production. 
We have then, as a nation, to discover why it is that our 
western swine, raised as they are under what appear to be more 
