American Live Stock. 
443 
sheep, swine and poultry, far superior as meat, milk and wool pro¬ 
ducers, to anything the world has yet seen. There are great op¬ 
portunities for the young farmer of the present and the future. We 
have in this country seen a single cow sell at public auction for 
over $40,000; and 1 suppose it is a fact that the late Mr. Hammond 
refused $30,000 for one of his rams. In one of the northern coun¬ 
ties of New York, where the thermometer goes down to 40 degrees 
below zero, an American breeder had a choice herd of Short-horn 
cattle. An English breeder purchased part of the herd at a high 
figure by telegraph. And only a few days ago an American breed¬ 
er “ cabled ” to a brother breeder in England, and bought his en¬ 
tire herd of thorough-bred Berkshire swine. A few pounds of 
potatoes have been sold for $500, and the seed of a well bred tomato 
for a much higher sum. In England, the offspring of a Yorkshire 
sow was sold for money enough to build a church, and in this coun¬ 
try a breeder of Essex pigs has done nearly as well. The purchaser 
of a single pair of pure bred Essex swine has sold pigs for over 
^10,000, and has a large herd left. And there is a real substantial 
basis to all this. A good, pure bred boar, when put to common 
sows, will get pigs that at five weeks old are certainly well worth 
$1 a head more than common pigs; and such a boar as can be often 
purchased for $20 or $25 can directly increase this additional value 
to at least a thousand pigs. The breeder who sells him for $20 gets 
pay for his skill and labor, and the purchaser and his neighbors ob¬ 
tain even still further profits. There are, therefore,— grand 
prizes in agriculture, and they are obtained, not at the loss of some 
one else, but to the benefit of all concerned. 
AMERICAN LIVE STOCK. 
BY L. F. ALLEN. 
Read before the National Agricaltnral Congress at Philadelphia, 1876. 
The subject on which your executive committee has invited me 
to address you, viz.: “ Our live stock interests, in their history, con¬ 
dition, and prospects,” is far too broad in its scope to be campress- 
ed within the limits of an address on an occasion like the present. 
