144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



successful competition with that from the West, where mast and 

 Indian corn are so very abundant and cheap. But to as large an 

 extent as swine can be fed here upon the waste of the dairy and 

 other refuse food, there is no doubt that the returns are excellent. 

 In the piggery all the spare buttermilk and whey are readily con- 

 verted into an article of considerable money value, and one which 

 always commands a ready sale ; and so it must be deemed an im- 

 portant appendage to the dairy. It is of more consequence, where 

 butter is the principal product than in cheese dairies. Whey con- 

 tains a little butter and casein, (the less the better, for these are 

 not profitably converted into pork,) a little albumen and saline 

 matter, together with about four and a half or five per cent, of milk 

 sugar, and the rest, say about ninety-three parts in a hundred, of 

 water. Sugar is a valuable constituent of food, but it is ill adapted 

 for an exclusive diet, for it does not contain all the elements need- 

 ful to healthy growth. Whey (first soured, as a free use of sweet 

 whey is considered unsafe,) should be deemed, and should be used 

 only, as an importayU adjunct to other food. 



Swine, in a state of domestication, and as usually kept in con- 

 fined and filthy quarters, are very liable to many forms of disease. 

 It is difficult enough to grow wholesome pork with good and suflS- 

 cient food ; but when hogs are kept for months together upon whey 

 alone, as is sometimes done in cheese-dairying districts, the meat 

 may be depended upon as particularly unwholesome, and especially 

 to be avoided. Fed, however, in connection with bran or shorts, 

 Indian meal, or buckwheat meal, whey serves an excellent pur- 

 pose for swine, and adds very considerably' to the dairyman's in- 

 come. 



Sweet whey is advantageously fed to young calves. " When a 

 pint or more of buckwheat flour is added to sixteen or eighteen 

 quarts of sweet whey, it forms a nutritious food on which calves 

 will thrive almost as well as on milk ; at least, after one week's 

 feeding on milk, they can be raised on whey, as above, without 

 detriment." * In Herkimer county the practice of feeding whey to 

 cows, instead of to swine, seems to be gaining ground. On this 

 point Mr. Willard says : " Whey is also fed to cows giving milk, 

 and with so good results that many prefer to dispose of it in this 

 way, believing it to be the most profitable method ; cows soon 



* Willard's Essay in New York Transactions, 1860. 



