OXFORD COUNTY SOCIETY. 17X 



Grade Suffolk Sow " Tiify," and four Pigs. — This sow wag 

 sired bj "General," and out of a native long nosed sow, and of 

 course she is half Suffolk. She' was a fall pig, and is one of the 

 pigs exhibited at the Show of this Society for 1856. She has been 

 kept the same as the rest of my hogs. Her pigs are after a boar I 

 borrowed of Isaac Stickney of Boston, and are stock from his cele- 

 brated Moses Wheeler importation, which, beyond all question, is 

 the best Suifolk stock ever imported into the United States. These 

 pigs are but two weeks old. 



I have had no experience with any imported breed except the 

 Suffolks, and I am not disposed to have any thing to 4o with others, 

 because I am perfectly satisfied with this breed, and do not deem it 

 ■wisdom to lay aside a satisfactory certainty for an experiment. I 

 know of no respect in which I wish to change the unadulterated 

 Suffolks. ' They attain a good size when kept till they are eighteen 

 or twenty months old, as well as attain an early maturity, when fed 

 for that purpose. They have a good appetite and great power of 

 appropriation, so that they will eat almost any thing they are desired 

 to, and will always keep themselves in a good condition, if they can 

 get any thing to eat. They can be very easily and cheaply kept. 

 They may be kept on raw carrots alone, or turnips, apples or pota- 

 toes without cooking. Their flesh is very fine grained ' and their 

 skin very thin and their pork very thick — unusually so on the belly. 

 They are very quiet and peaceable while they 'are fairly treated with 

 regard to food, but prodigously clamorous when pinched with hun- 

 ger. I think their pork, on an average, does not cost more than 

 half as much as that from our natives. 



In regard to breeding sows, I think the poorest food they can 

 have is Indian corn. This is my experience. Wheat bran, in the 

 form of what is called in market " fine feed," is the best food I 

 have been able to find for them. If milk can be added, all the bet- 

 ter. I find, too, that sows with pigs, do the best, to have access to 

 the ground. There is less danger of disease among the pigs. Pigs 

 farrowed and kept on a floor, especially if in winter and accessible 

 to cold from underneath, are very apt to be troubled with dysentery. 



. DafxIus Forbes. 

 South Paris, Oct. 5, 1857. 



