a place; for thf pig ox thf farm. 79 



very large, so we run the mower over a portion at a time, and 

 then it will spring up and we shall have a tender hog pasture. 

 I would not do this late in the season, as I like to have the feed 

 at a pretty good height as cold weather approaches. The hogs 

 will feed on it a little later than they will when it is short. 



This will not furnish enough cheap feed. We have found 

 that cheap feeds are healthful feeds. What is it that we can 

 raise that is not only cheap but of the best quality ? With us, it 

 is pumpkins. I raise them by the acre and give the hogs all 

 they can eat of them from the time they are fully ripe until the 

 ground freezes up. If we plant them with corn we cannot get 

 at them when we want them, and it is not economy for us to 

 plant them on the corn ground, so we plant them by themselves, 

 in checks eight feet square, putting eight or ten seeds in a hill 

 and then thinning the plants out to about three or four, when 

 they are out of the way of the bugs. Here in Maine, I would 

 plant them about six feet apart each way. As soon as ripe I 

 begin feeding them, sparingly at first, but when the hogs are 

 used to eating them, I give them all they will eat. We drive 

 out into the hog pasture with a load of pumpkins and a corn 

 knife, and as we throw out the pumpkins we hit them with the 

 corn knife which breaks them open, and by the time we have the 

 load emptied the hogs will have every pumpkin seed eaten, and 

 then they will begin on the pumpkin proper. The pumpkins 

 will act as a corrective when you are feeding much corn, and 

 they will free the animals from intestinal worms. Another thing, 

 where pigs have been fed pumpkins during the pumpkin season 

 we never find them getting off their feed later in the season. 



The little pigs during the summer we feed not only slop feed 

 but a little shelled corn. This corn is soaked from one feed to 

 another, and we feed a bushel of shelled corn to ioo pigs once 

 a day. We prefer the new corn to the old. We commence very 

 carefully, and increase until we get them on to full feed about 

 three or four weeks from the time of beginning. We never feed 

 a hog corn more than twice a day, and we never feed more than 

 the animal will eat up quickly. A healthy hog is a hungry hog. 

 The slop feed is fed at noon, not when the corn is fed. They 

 have access at all times to pure water. We want to keep them 

 perfectly healthy, for a perfectly healthy hog means an animal 

 that will convert the feed into pork cheaply. An unhealthy 



