Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1893 — NOTES AMD COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AMD COMMENTS.

The American hog has always been a part of our national history and the subject of more or less international humor. It has taken such a firm hold as a very important branch of our farming industries as to excite somewhat envious feelings among less fortunate nations, but the American quadruped is liberalminded and can afford to contemplate with equanimity their little jealousies so long as it puts money into the pockets of American farmers. The hog is now regarded with much more respect than for twenty years past owing to the very sudden advance in its value, and the American Agriculturist has been to a large amount of trouble and expense in securing facts and figures showing the growth and value of the hog industry since 1860, together with its position of today. All this information is extremely interesting. It is of most importance to note the direct bearing of the price of hogs upon the supply. The lowest value of hogs was $4.55, in 1860, and this cheapness caused farmers to turn their attention to other crops, as being more valuable; hence there was a reduction of 8.400.000 in number during the ensuing decade. This decrease, when our population was largely on the increase, forced the value of a hog up to $7, the result being that the supply was nearly doubled in the next decade—up to 1880. Then values fell back to sl. 58, just about where they were twenty years previously. Since then the supply has been more steadily regulated, without any great fluctuation in value, and the price of hogs throughout the country averaged $4.60 at the beginning of 1892, as compared with $4.55 in 1830. At the beginning of 1860, just thirty-three years ago, there were 83,512,867 hogs in the United States, worth an aggregate sum of $152,483,545, an average price of $4.55 per hog. A year .ago the number of hogs had increased to 52,398,019, worth $241,031,415, an average value of $1.60, showing an increase in the thirty-two years of nearly 19,000,000 hogs, and in value of nearly $90,000,000. At the beginning of February, 1893, the total number of bogs in the country was 46,94,807, a decrease of 6,300,090 as compared with a year ago. In value, however, they made the enormous increase of $54,400,000 within the year, being now worth close upon $300,000,000, while the average value last month was $6.41 per hog, as compared with $1.60 last year, a gain of sl.Bl per hog in the twelvemonth. There seems but little doubt that prices are liable to rule high during the remainder of this year, but a sudden large supply is likely to cause a sharp reaction, ana it will, therefore, be safer for farmers not to have all their eggs in one basket.

The Paris Temps states that the total length of railway lines in Europe at the end of last year was 142,658 miles, or 2,590 miles more than at the end of 1891, this being equivalent to an increase of 1.85 per cent. The 142,658 miles of railway are distributed as under: Germany, 27,130 miles, with an increase of 316 miles: France, 23,715 miles, with an increase of 655 miles; Great Britain and Ireland, 20,435 miles, with an increase of 50 miles; Russia and Finland, 19,420 miles, with an increase of 85 miles; Aus-tria-Hungary, 17,540 miles, with an increase of 655 miles; Italy, 8,240 miles, with an increase of 175 miles; Spain, 6,330 miles, with an increase of 155 milqg; Sweden and Norway, 6,150 miles, with an increase of 160 miles; Belgium, 3,315 miles, with an increase of 62 miles; Switzerland, 2,045 miles, with an increase of 50 miles; Holland and Luxemburg, 1,925 miles, with an increase of 11 miles; Roumania, 1,590 miles, with no increase; Portugal, 1,430 miles, with an increase of 105 miles; Denmark, I,32omiles, with an increase of 18 miles; Turkey, Bulgaria and Roumania, 1,074 miles, or no change; Greece, 572 miles, with an increase of 87 miles; Ser via, 337 miles, and Malta, 7 miles, in neither of the two latter cases there being any change. The present mileage in the United States is about 175,000.

Jackson Park, in which the Exposition is held, has a frontage on Lake Michigan of one and one-half miles, and contains 533 acres, seventy-seven of which are water. The Midway Plaisance is a mile long and 600 feet wide, and contains eighty acres more. There are thirty-nine Exposition buildings proper, and a floor space of 159 acres. Adding the galleries, there are 199.7 acres. Grouped around there are forty-four State and Territorial buildings, eighteen buildings erected by foreign Governments, and forty others for the minor purposes of the management, restaurants and advertising wares and enterprises. In the Midway Plaisance are the foreign villages, shops, etc. The visitor who would merely take a passing look at each of the vast array of exhibits must prepare to walk along 124 miles of aisles. Add to this the distance from one building to another, which must of necessity be traveled many times, and the distance to be covered will reach fully 150 miles. The people of the Spanish capital are much amused at the egotistic estimate recently placed upon his attainments by a young grandee. Among the interesting ceremonies at the Spanish Court is the appearance before the Queen-Regent at stated times, of the inheritors of the title of grandee, the most coveted distinction in the land. The ceremony is quaint. The new grandee, wearing his hat in the presence of royalty as a mark of his rank, recounts the glorious deeds of his ancestors and his own deeds as reasons-for his assumption of the dignity. At the last reception, the Duke of Tarifa, the youngest son of the Duchess of Medinaelli, was among the new grandees. But when it came his turn to tell why he should be a grandee he recounted with pride the fact that he had been graduated from the polytechnicum as an engineer! The Queen-Regent was not deeply impressed with the Duke’s qualifications, as many of his classmates surpassed him in attainments.

An instance of the progress making in college government is afforded by the act'on of the faculty of Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn., who have voted to adopt the Amherst system of government by a college senate consisting of ten students and five professors, who will consider all matters of college discipline as well as of general athletics. The students of Cornell are considering plans of student self-government, embracing a student court, to have final jurisdiction in all cases of fraud in examinations. the president of the university to preside over this court and have absolute power of veto. The faculty have given assurance of the hearty sympathy and co-operation of that body in the movement.

A French vegetarian society, like ancient Gaul, has become divided into three parts. One wing calls itself cerealite, to indicate that it believes only in eating cereals; another will be known as fruitarian, because it thinks fruit the only proper food, and another has been dubbed tuberile, because it believes in eating roots. Each v/ing thinks that the

, y— - —— happiness and stability of the humat race depend on the adoption of its views. Electricity is beginning to play an important part in horticulture. In Amateur Gardening a correspondent records the following result of experiments in the aero-electrification of soil in which plants were grown. On January 10 he planted some hyacinth bulbs in pots specially constructed. The bulbs grew rapidly,' and the plants came into bloom on February 14. Work on the mighty telescope for the French Exposition of 1900, which was to enable us to see the man in the moon, has been suspended, after considerable progress had been made in the construction of it, especially in the optic portion. The great lenses are already cast, but the whole affair is now abandoned for want of money. The principal man of funds in the enterprise was the late Baron Reinach of Panama. It is told of a St. Petersburg professor that he was a violent opponent of woman suffrage because the average weight of a man’s brain was 1,350 grains, while that of a woman was only 1,250. When his own brain was weighed it was five grains less than the female average.