Swine. This species of stock may be called a staple in the provision of Illinois. Thousands of hogs are raised without any expense, except a few breeders to start with, and a little attention in hunting them on the range, and keeping them tame.
Pork that is made in a domestic way and fatted on corn, will sell from three to four and five dollars, according to size, quality, and the time when it is delivered. With a pasture of clover or blue grass, a well-filled corn crib, a dairy, and slop barrel, and the usual care that a New Englander bestows on his pigs, pork may be raised from the sow, fatted, and killed, and weigh from two hundred to two hundred and fifty, within twelve months; and this method of raising pork would be profitable.
Few families in the west and south put up their pork in salt pickle. Their method is to salt it sufficiently to prepare it for smoking, and then make bacon of hams, shoulders, and middlings or broadsides. The price of bacon, taking the hog round, is about seven and eight cents. Good hams command eight and ten cents in the St. Louis market. Stock hogs, weighing from sixty to one hundred pounds, alive, usually sell from one to two dollars per head. Families consume much more meat in the West in proportion to numbers, than in the old States.
Sheep do very well in this country, especially in the older settlements, where the grass has become short, and they are less molested by wolves.
Poultry is raised in great profusion,—and large numbers of fowls taken to market.
Ducks, geese, swans, and many other aquatic birds, visit our waters in the spring. The small lakes and sloughs are often literally covered with them. Ducks, and some of the rest, frequently stay through the summer and breed.
The prairie fowl is seen in great numbers on the prairies in the summer, and about the corn fields in the winter. This is the grouse of the New York market. They are easily taken in the winter.
Partridges, (the quail of New England,) are taken with nets, in the winter, by hundreds in a day, and furnish no trifling item in the luxuries of the city market.
Bees. These laborious and useful insects are found in the trees of every forest. Many of the frontier people make it a prominent business, after the frost has killed the vegetation, to hunt them for the honey and wax, both of which find a ready market. Bees are profitable stock for the farmer, and are kept to a considerable extent.
Silk-worms are raised by a few persons. They are capable of being produced to any extent, and fed on the common black mulberry of the country.