THE PORK QUESTION IN EUROPE.
The question of admitting American pork into France is not yet settled. The Corps Legislatif is again "all tore up" by rash statements made by member M. Paul Bert, who has published a letter at Paris in which he argues that the use of our pork must result in disease, and that a general outbreak may be feared at any moment, so long as the products of diseased swine are offered in French markets. He endeavors to strengthen his position by pretending to quote from Dr. Detmers, Department of Agriculture Inspector at the Chicago Stock Yards. He alleges that Detmers has reported that diseased and dying hogs are sold daily in Chicago, and then shipped as pork, bacon, and lard to Havre and Bordeaux. To this audacious or mendacious charge Dr. Detmers replies as follows:
The statement made by M. Paul Bert, as contained in a cable dispatch from Paris, is not only a perversion of facts, but a falsehood cut from whole cloth. I never certified, wrote, or said that dead hogs are shipped to packing-houses, or that these carcasses are shipped abroad. All I ever said in regard to transportation of diseased or dead hogs is contained in my official reports to the Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, and can be found in his annual reports of 1878 and 1879, on pages 355 and 418 respectively, where it is accessible to everyone. I simply called attention to the transportation of diseased and dead hogs to the rendering tanks—entirely distinct from packing houses—as affording a means of spreading the then prevailing disease—swine plague, or so-called hog cholera.
M. Paul Bert seems to be a true demagogue, otherwise he would not resort to a falsehood to please his constituents. I never in any manner, directly or indirectly, stated or intimated that packers are or ever were in collusion with dealers in diseased live stock. Moreover, the laws and regulations of the Chicago Stock Yards are such as to render it absolutely impossible that a dead hog should be smuggled into them, and if an animal should die while in the yards it is at once delivered to a soap-grease rendering establishment outside of the Stock Yards, and can not possibly get into a packing-house.
This reply came too late to have any effect upon French legislation, and the decree of prohibition has been re-enacted. So far we notice no marked effect upon the prices of pork products in this country, but later it must result in depression. We notice the leading papers of the United States are advocating the retaliatory measures proposed months ago by The Prairie Farmer against European States interdicting the importation of our meat products. We refer to the prohibition of French and German adulterated and poisonous wines and liquors, and dry goods and silk goods colored with poisonous dyes. It must come to this at last if such totally unreasonable legislation against American products is to continue in those countries.
CORN, WHEAT, AND COTTON.
The preliminary crop estimates by the Statistician of the Department of Agriculture have been completed. He says the average yield of corn per acre for 1883 was within a fraction of twenty-three bushels, which is 12 per cent less than the average for a series of several years past. The quality is another thing.
It is doubtless true, Mr. Dodge says, that the quality of the corn north of parallel forty is worse than for many years, increasing practically the amount of shortage indicated by the number of bushels. As the whole corn grown in 1883 in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, added to half that grown in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, would make 400,000,000 bushels only—a fourth of the whole crop—so that the possible depreciation of 40 per cent in all of it would be equivalent to a 10 per cent reduction in the value of the entire crop. The Illinois Department agents make the quality 31 per cent less than the average in this State. An effort will be made later, after the worst of the crop has been fed, to ascertain the feeding value of the year's product. It is not proposed, however, to reduce the product to the equivalent of merchantable corn, or "sound" corn, as no crop ever is free from immaturity or imperfection. There always are some Northern fields caught by frost, some neglected acres, some choked with weeds or flooded by over-flows, and so on—corn, which is mainly "nubbins." What is intended without reference to panic or exaggeration is to find out the exact truth and then tell it. There is nothing gained, be it to farmers or consumers, the Statistician adds, in suppressing truth on the one hand or exaggerating the losses on the other. One feature of corn-growing in 1883 should prove a lesson to the farmers of the country; that is, the general use of seed corn in the West, grown in lower latitudes. The planting of Nebraska seed in Minnesota and Kansas seed in Illinois, has demonstrated the folly of attempting to acclimatize the Southern maize in the more Northern districts. Much loss from frost would have been avoided had the seed been carefully selected from the best corn grown in the immediate neighborhood.
The wheat crop is estimated, as before, slightly in excess of 400,000,000 bushels.