meat for drying; this will leave 425 pounds to be tried up. If the hide only is taken out, leaving 600 pounds. This, it is supposed, will give (if the steer is fat) from 25 to 30 per cent. of tallow or grease, and will be increased 6 or 10 per cent. The estimate given me is this: No account is made in this computation of oil from the feet, or the grease. and soup from the offal. I have directed some new experimets to be made with 6 bullocks, to determine more definitely and satisfactorily the facts, as communicated above. I hope to receive the results before this report is closed. Several patents have been lately taken out to increase the facility of trying up cattle, sheep, and hogs. While on this subject, it may not be amiss to add the experience of some excellent graziers as respects salting the cattle as a preventive to the mur rain, as well as hastening the accumulation of fat. Whoever has noticed the salting of stock, must have been struck with the eagerness with which they rush for this luxury. The strong ones get a double portion, while many get none at all. The successful ones, however, in their strife, seize much more than is good for them, since an excess occasions excessive thirst. A remedy is found by saturating salt with water, and then adding clay or ashes to absorb the liquid; the residuum, after standing still a little while, becomes a hard mass, susceptible of form. This is then conveyed, say in the form of a pyramid, to a convenient place (which should always be a dry place) for the stock to assemble at, and there protected by some covering from the rains. To this pyramid, give the cattle free access. Sheep will usually lick the salt cake two or three times a day. None of the stock will take more than they want, and all will get enough. The experiment has been attended with the most favorable results. In addition to the advantage of giving all the cattle such a supply of salt, it has been found that large herds have been saved entirely from the murrain. I would therefore recommend a trial, which can be easily made. If successful, the plan will save much labor and some danger. The following proportion will usually answer: 1 part salt dissolved in 2 parts water; 3 parts dry clay; 3 parts of wood ashes... The ashes and clay will help to keep the stomach and bowels in good order. This is the great preventive of the murrain, which is a highly excited inflammation of the intestines. The supposition that this disease arises from drinking in leeches, which subsequently find their way to the liver, is often believed, but is not tenable. The leech (if so it may be calied) found on the liver appears, upon microscopic investigation-indeed, also, to the naked eye-to be a very different thing from the water leech; besides, if the leech proceeded from the stomach to the liver, such a breach would be made as, to cause the speedy death of the animal, nor could the leech very pleasantly find its way through the gall ducts, Be all this as it may, the experiment of salting in the mode prescribed is confidently recommended. 3d. There is a good portion of the lean meat dried; for which, however, ere has not yet been any market. The new mode of which you speak is not been fully tested here yet. Our beef here is all killed from the wild grass. Such a thing as feeding em, either in winter or summer, is not known in the country. The report you mention having sent by mail has not reached me. I hall be pleased to see it. Your obedient servant, THOMAS F. MCKINNEY. H. L. ELLSWORTH, Esq. No. 35-(4.) SANDUSKY, (OHIO,) December 18, 1844. SIR: Your favor of the 7th instant came to hand last evening. We with ›leasure furnish you with such information as is in our power to give you, especting the sheep slaughtered by us the past year. The number slaughtered by us was not large. A part of the sheep we purchased to slaughter we sold, upon ascertaining that (probably owing to a very wet spring, which had the effect to sour the grass) the yield of allow was less than we expected, being somewhat short of the yield last season. We slaughtered 5,100 sheep, which yielded an average of about nine pounds of tallow each. The whole carcass was boiled up, except the hams. The tallow would have sold for (say) six cents per pound here, but is for shipment to Eastern markets. The pelts were shipped on a contract, (some of them previous to their being entirely dry,) and we did not ascertain their weight. They were mostly from large wethers; and good judges estimated that they would yield three and a half pounds of wool each pelt, Mr. Charles Hollister slaughtered at Huron, in this county, about 3,800 sheep, averaging about seven and a half pounds of tallow each. Messrs. N. M. Standart, S. C. Burton, and Barber, of Cleveland, Ohio, are slaughtering a large number of sheep, and would no doubt furnish you with information respecting the business. We are not doing much in the Canada trade; had not heard that there was a new duty on wheat for that destination. Respectfully, HOLLISTER & BOALT. M. L. ELLSWORTH, Esq. No. 35-(5.) CUSTOM-HOUSE, Cleveland, (O.,) January 4, 1845. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ultimo; and, in reply, beg leave to state that the number of sheep already slaughtered, and to be slaughtered, and tried up for tallow, at this place this season, will probably amount to over 50,000. To get an estimate of the value of sheep for this operation, I made inquiry of a friend who purchased 20,000, and has now slaughtered and tried up 15,000; and the following is the result, as nearly as can be ascer tained: The above is an estimate for a lot of fair quality. Our wheat can be carried to Canada, and be there ground and manufac tured into flour, and taken to England under Canadian duty. One house here shipped, during last summer and fall, 36,000 bushels of wheat, which was ground at St. Catharine's, on the Welland canal, and shipped to London under contract. There has been no law passed in Canada in relation to duties on our produce, since last year. The duty on wheat and flour is as follows: On wheat, 82 cents per bushel of 60 pounds. On flour, 49 cents and a fraction per barrel. Hon. H. L. ELLSWORTH, WILLIAM MILFORD, Collector Commissioner of Patents. No. 36-(1.) From the British Cultivator. THE ALPACA, Its naturalization in the British isles considered as a national benefit, and as an object of immediate utility to the farmer and manufacturer: by William Walton. For most of our cultivated plants, and indeed for many of our domestic animals also, we are indebted to other countries. With regard to the former, the history of their introduction is, in many cases, well established in detail; but it is so long since the latest of them-the potato, the turnip, or the mangel wurtzel, or carrot, for instance-was first cultivated in our country, that farmers have fairly settled down into the belief that they must make the best of the subjects they have on hand, for that Nature has nothing further in her stores, suited, in our climate, for the wants of man or beast. And with regard to the latter, the introduction of the very latest dates so much further back, that we must estimate the prejudice as stronger still, which scouts at the idea of any further addition being made to our stock of domestic animals from the lists of other countries. Of course, in speaking of this universal prejudice, we allude simply to the generality of those who at present occupy and cultivate our soil, and who form their opinion, probably, without very well knowing the grounds upon which it rests. There is every probability, notwithstanding the general notion to the contrary, that a useful addition will shortly be made to our stock of domestic animals. The alpaca, from the experience of it which has been compiled from various quarters in this country by Mr. Walton, really seems likely hereafter to play an important part in the stock-farming of the hilly districts of the kingdom. This animal is indigenous in the mountainous regions of Peru, where two domesticated species of it occur. The one, receiving the name of llama, is used as a beast of burden; the other, the alpaca, to which we at present allude, is a wool-bearing animal, and of it large flocks were formerly possessed by the Incas, sovereigns in former days of that country, and by other wealthy inhabitants of it. The climate of the districts in which this animal flourishes is described by Mr. Walton as follows: "The woolly natives possess a hardiness of constitution, and a peculiarity of structure, admirably well adapted to the nature of their birthplace. There, during half the year, snow and hail fall incessantly; whilst in the higher regions, as before noticed, nearly every night the thermometer falls below the freezing point, and the peaks, consequently, are constantly covered with an accumulation of ice. The wet season succeeds," &c. On the applicability of the alpaca to our soil and circumstances, we quote the following remarks: "The hardy nature and contented disposition of the alpaca cause it to adapt itself to almost any soil or situation, provided the heat is not oppres sive, and the air is pure. The best proof of its hardiness is its power to endure cold, damp, hunger, and thirst-vicissitudes to which it is constantly exposed on its native mountains; while its gentle and docile qualities are evinced in its general habits of affection towards its keeper. No animal in the creation is less affected by the changes of climate and food, nor is there any one to be found more easily domiciliated than this. It fares well while feeding below the snowy mantle which envelopes the summits and for several months in the year clothes the sides of the Andes. It ascends the rugged and rarely-trodden mountain path with perfect safety; sometimes climbing the slippery crag in search of food, and at others instinctively seeking it on the heath, or in rocky dells shattered by the wintry storm; at the same time that, when descending, it habituates itself to the wet and dreary ranges on the lowlands, so long as it is not exposed to the intense rays of the sun. "Many of our northern hills would try the constitution of any sheep, and yet there the weather is never so inclement or so variable as on the Cordilleras of Peru. With so many advantages, why, then, shall not the alpaca have an opportunity of competing with the black-faced sheep, the only breed that can exist in those wild and inhospitable lands. Of the two, the stranger would fare best on scanty and scattered food; at the same time affording to the owner a far better remuneration." The alpaca wool is at present used largely in British manufactures. Mr. Walton estimates the quantity hitherto consumed, since its introduction in 1832, at 12,000,000 lbs. The price of it varies from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d. per |