Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1874-01-02

in all the other Northern States, has been
rapidly progressing since that date, owing to
the constant expansion of the factory system
and the stimulus of high prices. Its quite
within bounds to say that the butter product
of the country is fully 60O,OOO,OOO pounds,
and that the cheese exceeds 200 1000 900
pounds year.
The dairy business Of this country has dc.
veloped with such rapidity and to such
degree of Importance, with the aid of the
highest intelligence and the application Of
the most consummato skill, as to be regard.
ed as one of the highest triumpbs Of mod
cru agriculture. Its annual product amounts
to over $500, 900, and the capital in.
vested in it does not fall short of 500, OOO,.
600. 1t gives employment to vast mum.
Der Of hands, and contributes to the comfort
and the health and the wealth of all classes
of the community.
Another product Of the cattle husbandry
Of the country, and most important one
whether considered from financial point of
view merely, or as furnishing vast amount
Of food for the sustenance Of mankind, is
represented in the value of animals slauph.
tered or sold for slaughter, and by the GEN.
sus of 1870 we find this item amount. to
about s400,000,00G, or, more accurately,
$39S,056,376, gain in ten years of very
nearly 100000. This, of course, in.
cludes the pork packing business, till re-
Gently confined, to large extent, to certain
western cities, but now carried on as a
growing business at many convenient points
along our great lines of railway in other
parts Of the country.
swine.
Improvement in swine began less than
three-quarters of century ago. The first
that excited any general interest was made
by some animals sent from Woburn Abbey,
by the Duke Of Bedford, to General Wash.
ington. The Englishman intrusted with the
care of delivering them seized an opportu.
nifty to sell them on their arrival in this
country, but they were bred and became
popular, and from all accounts they were
splendid animals, small and fiie in the bone,
with deep round barrel, short in the leg,
feeding easily, and maturing early. They
were long known as the Woburn breed, and
in some sections as the Bedford hog, and
were originated by fortunate cross of the
Chinese aud the large English hog of that
day. They would weigh from four to seven
hundred pounds at a year old, with light
offal and most excellent quality of flesh.
They became very common in Maryland,
Delaware, and Virginia, and they were sent
to Colonel Timothy Pickering, of Massa-
ohusetts, and became we'll known in that
part of the country. They are now extinct.
The By6eld breed, so popular for
many years, originated in the same way.
China thus did good deal for our agricul.
turc fifty years ago and more.
Previous to the introduction and diffusion
of the Woburn, the By6eld, the Mackay,
aud more recently the Suffolk, TIE Berk-
shire, the Essex, and other popular English
breeds, the classes of swine that prevailed in
the Eastern and Middle, and especially th,
Southern and Western States, we're coarse,
large-bOned, loug.legged and Improbable
creatures, better calculated for subsoilers
than for the pork-barrel, though the grass
fed hog had done something to improve
them as early as the time Of the importation
of merino sheep. But it soon became set.
tied that neither the Eastern nor the Middle
States could compete with the West in the
production of pork upon large scale, OIL
account Of the difference in the cost Of
grain The raising and packing of pork
has, therefore, grown up very naturally in
the Western States, and vast quantities are
exported from there every year. AT the
same time the facilities for carrying on thii
business have been SO greatly multiplied
that the whole packing trade has been re-
duccd to a system so perfect that it MAJ
almost be said that no particle Of the an
imal is now wasted, that all is economical
either for food or in the form of some com
mercia product, as bristles, lard, grease
stearine soap, Prussian blue, &c, the ag
gregate of which collateral industries
scarcely less important than the preparation
Of food itself. The business involves a vas
amount Of capital, gives labor to a vas
number of men, and adds amazingly to th
material prosperity of the country.
Sheep.
Sheep-husbandry in this country has bee
subject to great vicissitudes. Sheep wer
imported by the early settlers, by the Vil
ginia colony, as early as 1909, and they il
creased by l64S to three thousand. Th
y, Dutch West India Company introduce
them about the year 1925, but they prove
to be too much of temptation for dog
and wolves, for it is recorded that in l64
there were but sixteen in that whole colony
They were kept upon the islands in BOstO
Harbor as early as 1858, and two years Al
ter there were ninety-two in the vicinity o
i Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 1t becam
: the universal practice in the days Of hOm'
spun for the farmer to keep number sufI
cient to clothe his family,
n The old native " was a coarse, lougleI
; ged, and Improbable animal, and there wi
no Improvement made in the breeding ii
t towards the close of the last century, whe
4 in 1703. the first merinos. or 6ne.wools