fat) scrupulous care is taken that every piece used shall be without taint of any kind. The neutral is not pressed to extract the stearin. As it falls from the melting kettles into tanks of strong iced brine placed to receive it, it crystallizes into flakes white as snow, and absolutely without perceptible smell or taste. It remains in these vats about twenty-four hours, and is then removed and placed on shelves to drain, after which it is ready for use. The object of the process is to obtain a neutral fat melting at butter temperature.

Most oleomargarine factories are buildings four stories in height. On the upper floor the oleo oil and neutral are melted in separate kettles at a temperature of about 90 degrees. The proportion of milk and cream which enters into the product is from 10 to 20 per cent. One of the firms largely engaged in this manufacture in Chicago (Friedland & Swift) have in their establishment a well-appointed dairy, heated by steam pipes to the required temperature, in which pans of cream and milk are set out to sour, and are afterwards separately churned into butter precisely as in a creamery dairy. The more usual process is for the charge of cream and milk, slightly soured, to be first run into a steam-jacketed churn, fitted with steam paddles, which are agitated until butter begins to form. Then the oleo oil is let down and stirred in by the agitators. After it has been thoroughly mixed the neutral lard is added, and lastly a small quantity of best quality of creamery butter, and sufficient anotto (the harmless vegetable coloring used in butter making) to give the required tint. The temperature during the churning process is carefully regulated, beginning at 85 and running up to 105 degrees, and the time occupied varies from twenty-five minutes to an hour and a half. Some manufacturers, in order to soften the granular consistency of the oleo oil, and to give a better texture to the whole product in cold weather, add a certain proportion of refined cottonseed salad oil. In the higher grades of oleomargarine this result is attained by decreasing the proportion of oleo oil, and adding more creamery butter.

When all the contents of the churn have been thoroughly amalgamated they are discharged into vats of chopped ice in the floor below. The object of this sudden process of cooling is to give a fine grain to the product. The oleomargarine is allowed to remain in these cooling vats from thirty to forty-eight hours, until completely solidified. It is then taken out and placed on wooden trays to drain, and afterwards is salted and thoroughly worked by mechanical rollers, in the same manner as butter, until all the buttermilk and water have been pressed out. It is then cut and weighed and molded into the required shapes, which vary according to the market for which it is intended. After that it is placed on racks in the cooling room, at a temperature of about 38 degrees, and there it stays until packed in stamped tubs and boxes of sizes regulated by the Government, when it is ready for shipment.

Scrupulous cleanliness is observed in every process of the manufacture. This is more than a matter of choice; it is a necessity. Any deviation from it would be perceptible in the manufactured article. The kettles, tubs, tanks, molding boards, and even the floors of the factories are constantly scalded, steamed, and scoured, and kept as clean as the dairy rooms of a model farm.

There are three grades of lard:

LARD.

(1) Prime steam lard. This is the leaf fat of hogs, and the selected fat trimmings, cooked in a closed tank, by wet steam, at a pressure of from 35 to 40 pounds for from twelve to sixteen hours, after which the tank is allowed to settle and the lard is drawn off.

(2) Pure kettle-rendered lard. This consists of the fatbacks and other trimmings of hogs, rendered in an open kettle, and agitated while cooking to prevent burning.

(3) Refined lard. This is a compound production. It includes, besides a certain proportion of the higher grades of hog fats, the lard stearin left in the extracting of lard oil from leaf lard, the settlings and scrapings from the kettles from which the neutral lard is made, and all available fat tissues of the hog, to which are added the beef stearin obtained in the manufacture of oleo oil, and a certain quantity of double refined cotton-seed salad oil. The preparation of this product involves the employment of a somewhat complicated arrangement of steam jackets, hot-air agitators, settling kettles, filters, and other machinery.

The completed product of the third grade is sold for what it is—a compound lard; but the first two grades are inspected by the board of trade, and branded with a certificate of their purity before being put upon the market.

TRICHINIASIS AND HOG CHOLERA.

It only remains to speak of the questions whether the parasites found in trichinous hogs can be transmitted in a living state in the pork exported to European countries by the United States, and whether the flesh of animals dying of hog cholera or swine plague is ever converted into a food product.

On these points official investigations of an exhaustive character have been had. As a preliminary step the Department of State, in March, 1881, prosecuted an examination into the various phases of the pork industry in the Western States, covering all possible causes which could operate to render the products dangerous to health. The President of the United States, October 3, 1883, appointed a commission of impartial scientists and representatives of the New York Chamber of Commerce and the Chicago Board of Trade, instructing them “ to make a searching examination on the spot of all the conditions of the hog-raising and pork-packing industries of the United States, and to follow by the most practical examination the course of this food staple from the fields and farms to the wharf where it is shipped, or to the shop where it is exposed for domestic consumption." The results of these investigations were communicated to Congress by the Executive, accompanied by voluminous diplomatic correspondence and other information bearing on the subject.* From the official data thus presented, which remain uncontroverted to this day, these broad deductions and statements of fact are derived:

It is conceded that the Trichina spiralis is found in American swine, though the proportion of animals thus infested appears to be less than in the countries of Europe. No definite conclusion as to the manner in which swine become affected with the disease has been reached. It is established that hogs may present every outward appearance of health and yet microscopical examination may show the presence of trichinæ.

In the human subject the disease is developed from eating freshly killed pork, either raw or only partially cooked. The virulence of the disease diminishes with the time elapsing between the killing of the animal and the consumption of the flesh.

No case of trichiniasis has ever occurred in any European country as the result of eating cooked American pork, whether cured or fresh.

No authentic case of trichiniasis has been clearly established in any European country resulting from the eating of cured American swine products as prepared in the export packing houses, whether the meat has been eaten raw or cooked.

The prominent cases of trichianiasis occurring in foreign countries and ascribed to American pork have in every instance on investigation been ascertained to be the result of eating home-killed swine, or the products of other countries than the United States.

*Ex. Doc. No. 209, Forty-seventh Congress, first session; Senate Report No. 345, Forty-eighth Congress, first session, embracing Ex. Doc. No. 70, Forty-eighth Congress, first session.

The trichina can not long survive in well-salted meat. If transmitted in its encysted state abroad in American pork the cyst of the parasite is its tomb. The testimony of Prof. Virchow is that American trichina lose their injurious properties through smoking, salting, pickling, and especially through the long journey, and that he has not been able to find one case of trichinosis caused by American bacon or ham.*

No case of trichiniasis has ever arisen from eating American canned meats, because such meats are always subjected to a temperature above boiling point, in some instances as high as 240° F.=115° C.

No death from trichiniasis has ever occurred in the United States Army or Navy, though packed pork forms part of the daily food in both branches of the service. No case of trichiniasis has ever been brought under treatment in the United States Marine-Hospital Service.

Though the annual consumption of hog products in the United States amounts to over 4,200,000,000 pounds, no city or State, in the exercise of its police powers, has found it necessary to attempt to restrain the use of American pork meats on sanitary grounds, or for any other reason. Fatal cases of trichiniasis are extremely rare in the United States, and almost invariably occur among foreign-born residents, and from eating uncooked the flesh of improperly fed swine, such as would be immediately rejected if offered for sale to the packing houses which kill and cure hogs for the foreign market.

In respect to the disease known as hog cholera, or swine plague, the facts disclosed by the official reports above referred to conclusively establish:

That the disease attacks most frequently young pigs before they arrive at marketable age.

That the character of the disease is such that decomposition sets in before death, and the use of the carcass, or any part of it, for human food is an impossibility. That in no event is the disease communicable to human beings.

* Prof. Virchow, as quoted in the Magdeburger Zeitung, January 12, 1883. Senate Report No. 345, Forty-eighth Congress, first session, p. 117.

CHAPTER XII.

CATTLE AND SWINE REARING AND FEEDING IN THE UNITED STATES.

By GEORGE E. MORROW.

For many years rearing and feeding cattle and swine have been important parts of the work of most of the farmers of the United States. There has been a good home and fair foreign demand for these animals or their products. In no other country is the consumption of meats so great in proportion to population, and this chiefly of beef and pork rather than of mutton. Milk and butter have also long been used freely; cheese to a less notable degree.

As what are now the central Western States were occupied, farmers found in the fertile soils and climate, favorable for the production of forage grasses and cereals, more especially maize, strong inducements to give large attention to cattle-rearing. In a peculiar sense was this true of the settlers on or near the vast prairies covered with a luxuriant coat of fairly nutritious grasses, and with a soil not only possessing great stores of readily available plant food but capable of being brought into cultivation with a minimum of labor and cost. More recently still more extended areas of lands in the farther West, most of it unsuitable, except for grazing purposes, were stocked within a decade with millions of cattle.

The obvious superior fitness of animals and animal products over grains for transportation to distant markets has had much influence in more and more widely extending stock-farming in most parts of the country. While this branch of agriculture, taken as a whole or considered with reference to either of its divisions— the production of cattle, horses, swine, or sheep-has had alternations of great prosperity and of marked depression, it is clearly true that the average profits have been fairly satisfactory and the business has received the attention of many of the most intelligent and progressive farmers of the country.

The number of domestic animals in the country, or the number and distribution of those of any one class, can not be given with accuracy. The estimates of the statistician of the National Department of Agriculture include only the numbers to be found on the farms and ranches of the country, making no estimates of large numbers kept in cities and villages.

There were probably at the opening of the year 1889 about 50,000,000 cattle on the farms and ranches of the country. The official estimates give the number on January 1, 1888, as 49.234,777, classified as milch cows, 14,856,414; oxen and all other cattle, 34,378,363. This showed a total increase of 1,200,944 in the year 1887 as compared with an increase of 2,523,203 in 1886. It is believed the increase in numbers in 1888 was very slight.

It is exceptional not to find cattle on the average farm in any part of the country, and while there are striking differences in the extent to which cattle-rearing is pursued in different parts of the country, it is difficult to satisfactorily name those portions most properly to be called cattle-rearing sections. A comparison of numbers by States is misleading, owing to the great difference in the size of the States and the difference in the average value of the animals. Thus, Texas has about oneseventh of all the cattle in the country, but the number in proportion to total land area is slightly less than in the State of Rhode Island, with an insignificant total of 36,037 head of cattle, and the value of the cattle of Iowa is almost as great as those of Texas, although the number is not half so great.

In general it may be said the highest average value of cattle is in the northern Atlantic States, but, excepting New York and Pennsylvania, none of these have large numbers, and all of them import considerable numbers of beef cattle or meats. The more northern States have the largest number and most valuable dairy cows. The south Atlantic and Gulf States have comparatively small numbers of cattle of inferior quality.

The regions from which cattle or dressed beef are largely exported to other States or to other countries are two: A group of seven States in the central WestOhio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, these also being known as the chief corn export States, and a group of two States and three Territories in the farther West-Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming. These two groups have more than half of all the cattle in the country, and about two-thirds of all, aside from the milch cows. It is to be kept in mind that in the second group only a small percentage of the cows are classed as milch cows, as they are not used for dairy purposes, being suckled by their calves.

This classification is somewhat arbitrary, and does injustice to some States noteworthy for number or excellence of cattle, as New York, with approximately, 2,400,000 head, of which over 1,500,000 are milch cows; Pennsylvania, with about 1,800,000 head.

The accompanying table from the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture gives estimated number and value of the cattle in each State and Territory January 1, 1888:

Estimated number and value of cattle on farms in United States, January 1, 1889. [From the report of the Statistician United States Department of Agriculture]