Idaho

Table showing the estimated total number and total value, etc.-Continued.

Table showing the estimated numbers of farm stock expressed as a percentage of the uumbers of the previous years; also, average of actual prices in January, 1883. [From the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, November 10, 1883.]

The following extracts from the recent report of George B. Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture, of date November 10, 1883, presents a valuable array of facts on this subject. The returns of cattle, calves, sheep, and horses are included in order to present comparative values.

STOCK STATISTICS.

The Chicago market.

The volume of business in this great stock market is rapidly increasing. There were 1,582,530 catt.e. exclusive of calves, received, and 661,521 retained for home consumption or slaughter and cutting, or shipment as dressed beef. In 1870 the difference between receipts and shipments was only 141,255. The receipts and shipments, and home consumption, for seventeen years, are thus presented:

Of these receipts, 8,892,253, or 61 per cent of the whole number of cattle, were handled in the last seven years. The increase has been comparatively steady, amounting to nearly half a million since 1876, stimulated by the demand for the packing and canning trade, and more recently the dressed-beef trade. This increase is shown clearly in Diagram D, which displays graphically the receipts of seventeen years and the relative proportions shipped and retained. The proportions year after year run in nearly parallel lines until 1876, when the light shading indicating consumption suddenly encroaches on the dark space showing shipments.

The receipts of sheep have doubled in ten years, and the increase in seventeen has been about 200 per cent. Formerly much the larger proportion were for city consumption; now, while the number retained has greatly increased, the shipments are about half of the aggregate.

As

The swine receipts have increased with still more wonderful rapidity. "hogs" and "corn are in a sense reciprocal terms, the six years of fat corn crops nearly doubled Chicago receipts. So the poor corn year, 1881, reduced the next year's receipts 657,340, as the bad crop of 1874 checked the tendency to increase and made the following year's receipts less by 346,269.

While the domestic distribution has been rapidly extending and enlarging, the foreign trade in all farm animals has increased, and especially the exportation of sheep and cattle. The cattle exports prior to 1878 were from Southern ports almost entirely. When the transportation to Europe commenced from Northern ports, the numbers increased rapidly and values enormously.

The following statement exhibits the progress of stock exportation:

VALUE OF FARM ANIMALS.

The value of farm animals, as reported in the census of 1880, was $1,500,464,609. This includes only stock on farms, exclusive of ranch cattle, sheep, and horses. and stock in towns and villages. The prices have advanced since 1883. The value of stock, as estimated in January, 1883, was as follows:

This makes a total value of $2,338,197,268. The numbers are intended to include all animals on farms, ranches, or public lands.

The increase in prices in four years from 1879, the time of lowest depression in twenty years, is very marked. According to the Department returns this advance amounts to 35 per cent for horses, 41 for mules, 39 for milch cows, 41 for other cattle, 22 for sheep, and 112 for swine. Besides the general advance of values incident to a recovery of business prosperity, there is a powerful cause at work in the case of swine, the unexampled cheapness of corn in 1879, from consecutive crops of great abundance, and the high prices now prevailing in consequence of poor yields. This increase in values, applied to the census numbers, amounts to $2,174,000,000.

Average price of farm animals.

The following tabular statements present the growth and present magnitude of this interest:

Total number of hogs packed in the West during winter seasons, according to special

reports, since 1849.

The following shows the number of hogs packed in the Mississippi Valley during each year ended March 1 for the last thirty years, divided between summer and winter packing, and also the number packed in Chicago during each of these years:

In Chicago. In the West. In Chicago. In the West. In Chicago. In the West.

Previous to 1871 no reliable returns were made of the summer packing; it was, however, very inconsiderable.

Comparative statement of the last ten packing seasons, November 1 to March 1.

The following table from the recently issued Report of the Department of Agriculture presents the itemized hog products reported inclusive of 1883: