The hogs are allowed to run in the woods, and feed on the acorns, &c., till five or six weeks before killing-time, (8th or 10th November,) and are then turned into the Indian-corn fields, to fatten them and harden their flesh. They are usually from eleven to eighteen months old when they are killed; and the longer they have been in the corn-fields, the better is the pork.

The packing business of Ohio has been gradually concentrating itself in Cincinnati, where, in the winter of 1847 and 1848, about 420,000 hogs were sold, killed, and packed. The blood is collected in tanks, and with the hair, hoofs, and other offal, is sold to the prussiate of potash manufactories. The carcass is cured either into barrelled pork or into bacon and hams, and the grease rendered into lard of various qualities. Some establishments cure the hams, and after cutting up the rest of the carcass, steam it in large vats, under a pressure of seventy pounds to the square inch, and thus reduce the whole to a pulp, bones and all, and draw off the fat. The residue is either thrown away or is carted off for manure. One establishment disposes, in this way, of 30,000 hogs. Of the lard, the finest is exported— much of it to the Havannah-where it is used instead of butter. About thirty factories are engaged in the manufacture of lard oil and stearine, which is done by compressing the lard at a low temperature. The stearine is made into candles on the spot, of which 6000 pounds are manufactured every day, on an average of the whole

240

PRODUCTS OF THE HOG CROP.

year. The lard oil is partly sold as such, but in the Eastern States is used to adulterate spermaceti oil, and in France to lower the price of olive oil. It is said, that in this latter country, from 65 to 70 per cent of lard oil is often mixed with the olive oil without detection. The mixture is more apt to deposit stearine, howthan the pure oil, and such an appearance may lead

ever,

to its detection.

The less pure lard, and the fat extracted from diseased animals and from the offal, is used in the manufacture of soap. Besides soft and fancy soaps, there are made at Cincinnati about 100,000 pounds of soap weekly, and of the fat employed about 80 per cent is pork grease. Lastly, the bristles give rise to a separate business, employing a hundred hands, and the hoofs are partly boiled down into glue.

The marketable products of the 420,000 hogs packed at Cincinnati may be thus summed up

This is the yearly produce of a stock of about a million and a half of hogs in the State of Ohio. In the whole United States, the entire hog stock is estimated at upwards of 40,000,000. Hog-rearing must therefore be regarded as one of the most important branches of rural economy, and the hog-crop one to which yearly attention should be given.

This branch of economy in Cincinnati shows us how cities grow, how centres of united and simultaneous action become necessary to the most profitable develop

MANUFACTURE AT CINCINNATI.

241

ment of rural industry, and how many arts arise out of— necessarily spring from, and are indispensable to-the profitable pursuit of the farmer's operations. No corn or hog grower in Ohio would venture to say that the interests of his class were unconnected with, or opposed to, those of the moneyed men and enterprising merchants and manufacturers of Cincinnati.

VOL. I.

Q

CHAPTER IX.

Case of American cleverness.-Fat cattle of Ohio.-Butcher in Buffalo. -Cause of the growth of the city of Buffalo.-Capital taken out by emigrants. Influence of Europe on the progress of American cities.-Cause of the difference in progress of Canadian and New York cities.—Not a result of want of energy in the Upper Canadians. —Lake Erie.—Supposed periodical slow rise and fall in the level of the great lakes.-Evidence of such gradual changes of level.—Their relation to existing terraces, and ancient beaches.-Their supposed cause.-Water discharged by the Niagara River.-Hotel at the Falls. -Coloured waiters.—Geological Section at the Falls.—Published descriptions of the Falls.-Popular disappointment.-Wearing action of the water. Varying amount of water discharged over the Falls.Influence of the winds on Lake Erie.-Influence of the noise of the Falls on their impression upon the mind.-Railway to Lewistown. -View from the mountain ridge. Voyage on Lake Ontario.Queenstown heights.-Profits of New York farming, by a New York farmer.-Knowledge and intelligence among these farmers.-City of Oswego.-Sackett's Harbour.-Railway to Canada.-Kingston in Upper Canada.-Character of the Upper Canadians.-Difference between a Canadian and a New York wife to a working man.-Difference in the character of the people in the States arising from the number of Germans among them.

SEPT. 16TH.-I began a previous chapter by an allusion to the use of the word clever in the United States; I introduce the present by an illustration of the "clever" of the people.

ness

As we approached the end of our journey to Buffalo, a gentleman, to whom among many others I had been introduced at Syracuse, but whose name I did not know, accosted me in the railway carriage, and asked me to

AMERICAN CLEVERNESS.

243

take up my quarters at his house, a couple of miles out of Buffalo. I excused myself from giving him trouble, on the plea that I intended to start again early in the morning for Niagara, and that it would be more convenient for me to go to the American Hotel. He then offered, while I waited for my luggage, to walk into the town to secure me a good room at the hotel. Accordingly, half-an-hour after, when I drove up to the hotel, I found him waiting, and comfortable quarters secured for me. In the morning, when I asked for my bill, I was told that everything was paid. I hesitated at first to receive this pecuniary obligation; but on reflecting that it was meant in kindness, I felt it would be unkind in me, in the absence of my unknown friend, to refuse it. I contented myself, therefore, with inquiring his name, and have pleasure in mentioning the circumstance here, as an instance of the proneness of our Transatlantic cousins to the virtue of hospitality. Notwithstanding the sour and exciting things said occasionally by bitter journalists, on both sides of the water, they will not, in our time at least, altogether forget that "blood is thicker than water."

The long and wide main street of Buffalo reminded me of the Trongate of Glasgow more than of any other street in Europe I recollect to have seen, though, of course, it is newer, and less finished in appearance. On the evening of my arrival I took a walk along it, to look at the many large and well-stored shops. Among others, I went into a butcher's store, in which the beef and lamb, to my eyes, seemed excellent. The prices of lamb and mutton were 3 to 6 cents, of beef 4 to 8, of pork 61, and of fowls, when full grown, 5 cents a pound. The import duty on Canadian beef is 20 per cent; so that fat cattle not reared at home are brought chiefly from Ohio, where, as I have said, the excess of Indian corn is used up in feeding stock. Besides the "hog crop " of south-western Ohio, the cattle crop of the eastern portions-which lie