The light will be exhibited for the 5th of March proximo, and will continue to be exhibited from sunset to sunrise on each succeeding night till further notice. To enter this channel by day, bring the light-house to bear S. by W. W. magnetic, or in range with the buoy on the bar, and the west end of Mullet Key; then run till the bar is crossed and buoy No. 2 is made, when baul up S. E. E. magnetic, for buoy No. 1. To enter by night, bring the light to bear S. by W. W. magnetic, and run on that course till Key West Light bears S. E. S. magnetic, when haul up for it, and when in three fathoms anchor for the night. This light is designed to notify mariners of their approach to the bar, and to guide them over it by day and night, but it is not intended nor cau it be used as a guide in the passage from the bar to Key West. Dependance for this purpose must be had in the day time on the channel buoys and ranges on shore, and at night on the bearings of Key West and Sand Key Lights; to ascertain the relative position of which, mariners are recommended to provide themselves with the chart of this harbor published by the Coast Survey. LOUISIANA QUARANTINE REGULATIONS. By virtue of an act of the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, approved March 15, 1855, entitled "An act to establish quarantine for the protection of the State," the Governor of that State has thought proper to issue a proclamation, upon the advice of the Board of Health, declaring all vessels coming from any port in the torrid zone, or any vessel which may have cleared from other ports, but has last sailed from a port within the tropics, subject to a quarantine of not less than ten days The ports of Savannah and Charleston are also included. This proclamation was published on the 4th day of June, 1855. STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE, &c. COMMERCE IN ANIMALS AND CONSUMPTION OF ANIMAL FOOD. Heretofore we have known very nearly the number of animals raised in the United States, but we have not known the number and weight of animals actually consumed in the country. But this fact is very desirable, and will prove very useful. It is well known that the cattle, as well as the hog trade, furnish a very large portion of the exchanges of the country, and hence the question of how much, where, and when animal food is consumed, has a direct relation to the financial as well as commercial concerns of the country. The progress of statistics, however, gradually furnishes the materials to show this, and all similar problems. The great difficulty is to find a unit of measurement for the consumption of cattle and hogs. In the cattle trade, we know that the great cities of the country are the main purchasers of cattle, insomuch that what enters into general Commerce is a very small amount of what is consumed in the large towns. With hogs it is something different, for an immense amount of pork and lard enter into general Commerce for exportation, especially to southern latitudes, and for the navies and armies of the world.'" At present we shall confine ourselves to the supply and consumption of cattle and sheep as food; in other words, beef and mutton. For the consumption of beef, we want a unit. It might have been furnished by the statistics of Smithfield market, London; but we are not aware that they have been kept and recorded. The New York market, however, is a still better test, for the whole of our population are meat eaters. Fortunately, all the cattle, sheep, and calves consumed in New York are sold from some half-dozen yards. Fortunately, also, the New York Tribune has kept a reporter especially for those yards, and has given us the entire number of cattle, sheep, and calves consumed in 1854 in New York city, including Brooklyn, &c. The aggregate result is as follows: Cattle consumed.. 154,000 We know very nearly the average weight of these animals, and the population by whom they are consumed. The average weight of the cattle may be taken at 750 pounds, and of the sheep and calves, 80 pounds. The population of New York, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg. in 1854, was about 750,000. elements for the solution of the general problem. Here, then, we have the Before we go farther, let us look at the financial aspects of the question, as between New York and the West, where cattle sold for an average of $70 each; the sheep and calves at an average of $5 50 each. We have then this result: Value of 150,000 cattle..... Value of 470,000 sheep and lambs... Aggregate value of beef and mutton in New York. $10,780,000 $13,365,000 Now, full three-fourths of this entire amount came from the West, beginning with the valley of the Alleghany, in New York and Pennsylvania. New York, then, has to pay ten millions of dollars to the West for cattle and sheep, (independent of wool,) and the West is thus furnished with ten millions in exchange for the payment of its dry goods. This financial operation is one of great importance, and makes no small part of the business of the banks in the interior of Ohio and Kentucky. It is a safe and a profitable business; and in regard to their own operations, no banks are safer than those based on the cattle trade. But let us look at the general consumption of cattle in this country. The above facts show that each 1,000 persons in civic population consume 205 cattle and 533 sheep per annum. What does this give us for the whole town population of the United States? The following table will exhibit the account: Sheep and lambs. Population. Cattle. New York..... 750,000 154,000 470,000 The towns over 5,000 inhabitants each in the United States contain at present four million of inhabitants, or about one-fourth the population of the country. The large towns consume eight hundred thousand beeves and two-and-a-half million of sheep and lambs. At an average of $50 each for the beeves, and $3 each for the sheep, which is not too much, we have the following result: Value of 800,000 beeves Value of 2,500,000 sheep and lamb... Let us now add to this the hogs of Commerce3,000,000 at $8 Total...... $40,000,000 7,500,000 24,000,000 $71,500,000 If, now, we add to this aggregate the pickled beef, the salt barrels, and labor used in packing pork, and finally the value of wool sold from sheep, we find the Commerce in animals amounting in value to full one hundred millions of dollars; an amount greater than the entire cotton crop. Two-thirds of this entire product comes from the States in the valley of the Ohio; and we shall not be beyond the mark in saying, that the States of Ohio and Kentucky create an exchange on the Atlantic States equal to twenty millions of dollars per annum, derived from the Commerce in animals. In reference to the average weight consumed, if the above number of beeves, sheep, and hogs, be reduced to their aggregate weight, and then divided by four millions, (the aggregate of town or city population,) the result will be about 15 ounces to each individual per diem. Now, the daily ration of solid meat allowed in the British navy is 12 ounces, which may be taken as the average for adults. The excess of quantity found in the above calculation will be fully accounted for by exportation to other countries, and by the consumption of towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants. The general accuracy of the above calculation is, therefore, sufficiently proved, and the magnitude of the result furnishes another illustration of the value of internal Commerce.Cincinnati Price Current. THE SORGHO, A NEW SUGAR PLANT. The scarcity of corn in France, as we learn from an English cotemporary, has drawn attention to a new plant, recently introduced from China, which promises to supersede to a certain extent, the use of beet-root in the manufacture of sugar and the distillation of alcohol. The agricultural committee of Toulon has recently addressed a report to the Minister of War, with respect to the use of the plant in question. It is called the sorgho, or holeus saccharatus, and was first introduced into France in 1851, by M. de Montigny, the French consul in China, who sent some grains of the seed to the government. Since then the culture of the plant has been commenced with success in Provence, and promises to be of great advantage to Algeria. The sorgho has been called the "sugar-cane of the north of China," and numerous experiments have recently been tried with a view to ascertaining if it possesses the properties necessary for producing a crystallizable syrup, so as to become a rival to sugar-cane and beet-root. According to the report of the Toulon Agricultural Association, it would appear to have those properties. The fact has been ascertained by a series of experiments made in the department of the Var. It also appears to be richer in the sacharine principle than any known plant, except the vine. Beet-root contains from eight to ten per cent of sugar; the sorgho produces from sixteen to twenty per cent, from which eight or ten per cent of pure alcohol, fit for all industrial and domestic purposes, can be produced. The refuse is excellent food for cattle, who are very fond of it. The plant grows with great rapidity, and does not require irrigation. The sorgho is not a new discovery, as it has been used from time immemorial by the inhabitants of the North of China, by whom large quantities of sugar are extracted from it. But this is the first time it has been produced on any thing like an extensive scale in Europe. NEW YORK CATTLE TRADE FOR 1854. NEW YORK THE MOST EXTENSIVE CATTLE MARKET IN THE UNITED STATES-DESCRIPTION OF CATTLE SOLD WEEKLY IN 1854-AVERAGE PRICES OF BEEVES, COWS, CALVES, SHEEP, AND LAMBSCOMPARATIVE MONTHLY STATEMENT OF CATTLE ON SALE IN NEW YORK MARKET, ETC. New York is the most extensive cattle mart in America. The cattle brought to the New York market come from nearly all sections of the Union east of the Mississippi. Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, are our most liberal contributors; but Western and Northern New York, with Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other of the New England States, likewise send us extensive supplies. All the lines of travel radiating from this city to the interior-the Harlem and Hudson and Erie railroads, the New York Central, the Lake Shore, the Great Michigan Central, and the Baltimore and Ohio, and some of the Eastern railroadsfind in the carriage of the live stock consumed here one of their most profitable items of freight from Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New England, and Northern and Western New York. A considerable proportion of the cattle driven to this market, however, come from districts not so distant. The counties on the North River raise some of the finest, while Long Island and New Jersey are occasionally large contributors. In New York city there are principally four places for the sale of beef cattle-the well-known Washington Drove Yard in Forty-fourth-street, between the Fourth and Fifth avenues, of which A. M. Allerton, Esq., is the proprietor; 2d, the Lower or Hudson River Bull's Head, kept by Messrs. Chamberlain; 3d, George Browning's Central Bull's Head, in Sixth-street; and 4th, the market kept by Mr. Morgan O'Brien, also in Sixthstreet, near the Third Avenue. Sheep and lambs are sold at all these places except the last mentioned; the largest number at Browning's, and the next at Chamberlain's. The largest business in cows and calves is done at Browning's and Chamberlain's. The market day hereafter will be Wednesday, but sales to a greater or less extent will doubtless be made every day. Independently of the regular transactions at those several city markets, there are many cattle bought and sold on the boats at the wharves. Many cattle slaughtered in the country are also brought to market here, ready dressed, but these do not enter into the statistics below: STATISTICS OF THE SEVERAL DESCRIPTIONS OF CATTLE SOLD WEEKLY DURING THE YEAR 1854, AS COMPILED FROM THE PUBLISHED REPORTS. |