Thus Wolff's experiments made at Möckern have shown that in the case of sheep fed with hay, the wool becomes much heavier and the flesh leaner than those of sheep fed with a more concentrated food. While it is estimated in England, at the present time, that the wool of South-Down sheep is worth scarcely one-tenth what their flesh is (Jacob, On Corn Trade, 166), mutton, from the year 1260 to 1400, was, on an average, worth 17 pence; and this even at a time when prices were gradually rising; but the wool of one animal (1 lb., 7-¾ ounces), 5-¼ pence. (Rogers, I, 362, 395.) Even under Anglo-Saxon kings the fleece was worth 40 per cent. of the value of the whole sheep, (David Hume.) And so W. Macann, Two Thousand Miles Ride through the Argentine Provinces, 1853, I, 151, says that in the interior of Buenos Ayres, he purchased 8,000 sheep at 18 pence a dozen, and after a march of 200 English miles, sold the skins for sixty pence a dozen. In Goya, formerly, a live horse cost 3 pence, its skin on the coast 12 pence; and the slaughtering of the beast cost 3 pence, the removal and cleaning of the skin 3 pence; and 3 pence were paid for transportation. (Robertson.)
In Ireland, in 1763, it not unfrequently happened that the skin and tallow of an ox cost as much in a commercial city as the whole ox had cost in the nearest market town. (Temple, Works III, 13.) In England, from 1260 to 1400, the average price of a whole cow was 9s. 9d.; of the hide 1s. 8d., and cows were cheapest in the first decade, i.e., 6s. 2d., and the hides dearer than they were generally afterwards, i.e., by from 1-9-¼d. (Rogers, I, 361, 451.) In Saxony, according to Engel (1853), the average price of horned cattle was about 46 thalers; of their hide, 4 thalers and 21 silver groschens. Russia exported, 1842-1847, 72,636,166 silver rubles worth of tallow, 1,832,137 silver rubles worth of horse hair, 10,811,735 worth of bristles (Borsten), 7,387,140 of uncured skins, 36,159,452 of sheep's wool, but flesh-meat only to the amount of 370,362 rubles, and entire animals to the value of 6,853,241 rubles. (P. Storch, Der Bauernstand Russlands, 289 ff.) Tallow is there ten times dearer than the same volume of wheat. (Steinhaus, Russlands industrielle und commercielle Verhältnisse, 294 ff.); while in Saxony, according to Engel (1821), a pound of wheat cost on an average 7.8 pfennigs, and a pound of tallow 30 p. However, Russia's recent progress in civilization has had for effect: that the exportation of tallow (1833 = 4-½ million puds; 1869 = 2-¼ mill.) has greatly fallen off; while that of butter and live stock has increased. (v. Lengefeld, R. im 19. Jahrh., 220 ff.)
In England, during the fourteenth century, a pound of meat cost, on an average, ¼d.; of lard, from 1-½ to 2. (Rogers, I, 411.) On the other hand, from 1848 to 1856, the average January price of beef from America was 110 shillings; of tallow from St. Petersburg, 48s. 11d. per cwt. (Newmarch.) And so, in the time of Pallas, the Cossacks chased the deer of their steppes only for the sake of its skin and horns. (Pallas, Reise, III, 524.) While the Greeks got horn from Macedonia and Thrace (Herodot., VII, 156), it is a striking proof of high civilization that at Athens (?), about the time of the hundredth Olympiad, an ox-hide was worth only 3 drachmas, and the whole ox 77 drachmas. (Böckh, Staatshaushalt, I, 105 ff.)
As the ox is primarily serviceable as an object of food and an instrument of labor, and the sheep on the other hand, only an instrument to produce wool, it is easy to understand why, with the further advance of civilization, the price of oxen rises comparatively much more than the price of sheep. In Athens, during the time of Solon, an ox was equal in value to five sheep. (Plutarch, Solon, 23.) So also in countries with a low civilization in the time of Polybius. (Polyb., XXXIV, 8; Gell., XI, 1.) Why the same was the case in Rome at the beginning of the Republic? (Plut., Popl., 11). In England the proportion between the price of an ox and that of a sheep was,
in 927 as 6:1 (Henry.)
in 1125 as 3:1
in 1182 as 6.3:1
in 1197 as 9:1
in 1229 as 8:1 (Eden.)
in 1260-1492 (av.) as 9.2:1 (Rog.)
in 1497 as 10:1
in 1500 as 11.6:1
in 1511 as 8:1
in 1528 as 10:1
in 1529 as 12.8:1
in 1531 as 9.4:1
in 1551 as 10.6:1
in 1597 as 8.2:1 (Eden.)
At present the proportion may be from 10 to 20:1. In Saxony, it is as 48 thalers to 5.27. (Engel.)
During the middle ages, pork constituted the most usual animal food even of the best classes. (Büsching, Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen, I, 164.) Immense importance attached to pork by the Lex Salica. (Tit., II, XIV; Emendatt. Caroli Magni, II, 1 ff.) The archbishop of Cologne used every day 24 large and 8 medium-sized hogs, and four more on the three great festivals. The abbot of Corvey used daily five fat and one lean hog, besides two young ones. (Kindlingen, Münsterische Beitr., Urkunden, 147, 126.) In 1345, at the court of Dauphiny, there were used annually for 30 persons, 30 salt and 52 fresh hogs; whereas, in modern Paris, with 800,000 inhabitants, only 32,000 hogs are consumed yearly. (Roquefort, De la Vie privée des Fr., I, 310 f.) Compare herewith the place occupied by the swine-herds in the Odyssey in Greece's age of chivalry. In England, in the time of William I., woods were taxed according to the number of hogs they might feed. At present, there is an enormous production of hogs in Servia, which, in many places, constitutes the only source of ready money to the agricultural population.
And about the end of the eighteenth century, it is said that Servia received from Austria alone 1,300,000 florins yearly for hogs. (Ranke, Serb. Revolution, 95.) In 1864, Servia's total exports amounted to 62,500,000 piasters, of which 28,162,260 were for hogs, 7,043,000 for wool, 7,662,000 for the skins of sheep and deer, 5,732,000 for cattle, 1,222,400 for tallow. (Kanitz, Serbien, 598 ff.) Great production of hogs also in the Moldau and in Wallachia, in the United States and Mexico, where, instead of butter, only lard and suet are used; also in Lombardy, the Prussian Rhine province, Belgium, the English milk-producing districts, Gloucester, Wilt, Dumfries, Galloway and the districts where agricultural proletarians abound—Ireland and Yorkshire. It is a consequence of the same law that, among the South Sea Islanders, the hog was the principal domestic animal, as it still is among the Chinese. Similarly in the whole of Asia, beyond the Ganges (Ritter, Erdkunde, IV, 938, 1101); in semi-barbarous upper Italy in the time of Polybios (II, 15); in Gall itself, in the time of Augustus. (Strabo, IV, 192, 197.) The America of the ancient Greeks, Sicily, exported hogs, mainly, in the time of Hermippos. (Athen., I, 27.) And even among the Romans, the consumption of pork was much greater than the consumption of beef. (Marquard-Becker, Handbuch, V, 2, 39.)
According to Schuckburg, Philosophical Transactions of 1798, and Kraus, Vermischte Schriften, I, tab. I, the prices of the following species of animals rose in England between 1550 and 1795: horses, 904 per cent.; oxen, 896 per cent.; sheep, 876 per cent.; cows, 2050 per cent.; hogs, 1964 per cent.; geese, 300 per cent.; butter rose from 5d. per pound to 11-½d.; beer from 1d. per gallon to 2-¾d.; agricultural day wages from ½s. to 1s. 5-¼d.; wheat 326 per cent. Compare, however, Edinburg Review, III, 246 ff. In Germany also, cows and hogs have increased much more in price than horses and sheep. (Tübinger Ztschr., 1871, 342.) Dutot, Réflexions, 946 ff., éd. Daire, says that the value of the precious metals in France decreased in value between the times of Louis XII. and Louis XV. in the ratio of 3-79/91:1. On the other hand, the prices of different commodities rise in very different degrees:
Fat sheep, from 7 sous to 10 livres.
Lean sheep, from 5 sous to 5 livres 10 sous.
Hogs, from 10 sous to 25-35 livres.
Capons, from 1 sou to 12 sous.
Hens, from 1-½ sous to 6 sous.
Pigeons, from 1-½ sous to 3 sous.
Deer, from 1-½ sous to 15 sous.