compact mass, dealers do not urge a reduction of price, if the flavor and quality are perfect. Extreme porosity shows a defect in manufacture, and carries with it the impression that the cheese will sooner go to decay, and is therefore dangerous to handle, requiring quick sales.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH MARKET.

In closing, a word may be offered in reference to the prospect of future exportation and prices. The English are a great cheese-cating people. We have no conception of the extent to which this food enters into general consumption. Those who can afford to eat a good article purchase the best, and the poor take up with that which is inferior and bad. I have seen tons and tons of the most worthless stuff, apparently fit only for the pigs, in the shops and public markets, and it had a rapid sale. The cutters are extremely expert. They use a thin circular knife, like a half moon, having an upright handle springing from the centre, and with this they cut the cheese upon the counter. They also use a fine wire, with handles at each end, for splitting a large cheese. I have been surprised at the accuracy with which they will cut the different weights. The crumbs are laid on one side, to be used for balancing the scales. There is an immense demand for inferior or low-priced cheese. If we could manufacture cheese so as to sell on the counter at 4d. to 6d. per pound, I think they would take our whole product.

Cheese does not come upon the table with pastry, as with us, but is brought on as a separate and last course. A half or a quarter of a cheese, placed upon a silver dish, with a clean, white napkin under it, is set upon the table, and cut as desired. I think there must be a good foreign demand for American cheese for some years to come. The production has been cut off in the northern districts of England. The cattle plague has been terrible in its ravages through this section. In Cheshire, and the adjoining counties, the losses have been fearful. The Cheshire people feel very melancholy, and many of the farmers are unable to pay their rents. Some of them are trying sheep-farming, but with indifferent results. They have been long a dairy people, and understand the management of cows. I am convinced they will go back to dairy-farming when the cattle plague shall be effectually eradicated-and that appears now to be almost accomplished-but they will hardly get established again for a year or two. They will not abandon dairying till we can furnish cheese so cheaply as to drive them from the market. The cost of transportation and the high prices of labor, and heavy taxation, are against the production of a cheap cheese on this side, at least in the older States. Holland, too, enters into competition with us. She is now shipping to England 80,000,000 pounds of cheese per annum. Last year (1865) the quantity imported was nearly 73,000,000 pounds. The passage can be made in a day, and the cost of exportation is a mere trifle. Their cheese is very good, but not equal to ours; but they are improving every year in quality. They make three styles of cheese, which are popular among the poorer classes. The Edams and Middlebaes are round, like a cannon-ball, and weigh from 6 to 12 pounds. The Goudars are a small, flat cheese, of about 20 pounds weight. The agricultural laborers like Edams, as they can take a cheese into the field and cut it without waste. These cheeses sell at from 8 to 10 shillings per hundred weight, below American. There is less difference between the Derby Goudar and the American, the former often selling within four shillings of the price of ours.

Our future successes will depend upon our making fine cheese, and getting it to market at cheap rates. Something might be done in opening up new markets. The English export cheese to Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, Brazil, and various other points.

Something should be done by the cheese-makers and shippers in the way of regulating exportations. If we could give England a steady supply, without

pushing forward an immense quantity to clog the market, prices would be maintained, and greater profits realized.

The following table gives the number of packages of cheese shipped from New York to Liverpool, from May, 1862, to September, 1866, made up so that the comparative weekly shipments of the different years may be seen at a glance:

Weekly exports of cheese from New York to Liverpool.

、“

Weekly exports of cheese from New York to Liverpool-Continued.

Shipments of cheese to London from May 1 to August 31, 1865: 21,000 boxes; 1866, 37,000 boxes.

* Total from May 1, 1966, to September 1, 1866.

Total during the same time, 1865.

In the foregoing table the average weight of the packages may be estimated at about 70 pounds each. The following table gives the quantity of cheese shipped from New York to Liverpool, from May, 1865, to December 20, 1866, reduced to 100 pound packages, with the average weekly price in shillings (English) at which American cheese sold in London. The tables are valuable in showing how prices are influenced by excessive shipments at any one time:

Shipments of cheese from New York to England, with prices in London.

THE HOG AND ITS PRODUCTS.

BY CHARLES CIST, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

HOG raising has always been a profitable, and, therefore, a favorite department of farming in what was formerly called the West, but which now constitutes the great centre, as respects population, of our rapidly expanding republic. The rich harvests, to be had simply for the gathering, yield by the oak, beech, hickory, and other trees of our forests, popularly termed mast, formed to a great extent, for many years, fattening food for swine. The roots in the woods, with the natural grasses, supplied subsistence during the spring and summer months, so that the sole expense to the farmer, in raising hogs, was the feeding of those too young for market, and of those reserved for stock and for increase, at the cost of the Indian corn necessary for their winter sustenance. In early days, and before the introduction of railways, this cereal would not repay the expense of transportation to market, and, therefore, hardly entered into the consideration of what it cost to raise hogs. In fact, taking into view the prolific character of the animal, and the small amount of labor and expense involved in its care and cure, it was the general impression in the West that it cost nothing for a man to make his own pork; and for a long time vast quantities of slaughtered hogs were sold in that region at prices ranging from seventy-five cents to one dollar per hundred weight, and considered sufficiently remunerative at these rates.

The writer of this sketch has seen in the southern portion of Illinois, and within twenty-five miles of land carriage to the Ohio, immense quantities of Indian corn offered at six cents per bushel; yet at this low figure the grain would not bear transportation to the river. The farmer, unless in the neighborhood of a distillery, was compelled to feed his crop to his cattle or his hogs. Even at a much later date, between the scarcity of timber for fuel and the low price of corn, large quantities of the latter article have furnished fuel in the prairie region of the State referred to. As the cultivation of the country opened, and the wood ranges became more restricted, it was found that it paid better, while it was more convenient, to feed the hogs on corn than to turn them out to the woods, as they grew faster and increased more rapidly in fat as well as in flesh, while the quality, both of meat and lard, was thereby greatly enhanced in value. At this period, for want of good roads, grain to a limited extent only was sold to the whiskey distillers, its low price not permitting it to be carried by wagons to the distilleries, unless from short distances.

Under these circumstances, pork-packers commenced at various points in the West for the supply of the eastern markets, while the rapid increase of hogs kept pace with the corresponding improvement of the western country and the enlargement of its corn crops.

Then came the era of railroads. It was at once seen that hogs could be delivered at market points, either east or west, at less expense, in shorter time and in better condition, than they had hitherto been taken by droves. There was also no giving out of the hogs on the route. The natural result was to give a new impulse to the raising of swine; and from that period the hog has become one of the most important staples of the country.

The history of the hog crop, and its various manufactures and products, is so intimately connected with the growth and progress of the corn crop, that a knowledge of the yield of our great cereal, as far back as it can be ascertained, may perhaps be necessary to a full comprehension of the subject; but as I do not