SECRETARY'S REPORT. 203 



realize the full reward of his labor, nor in any other way so speedily 

 and easily convert into ready money, the coarse products of the soil. 

 Raising swine, in comparison with other animals, as neat stock, 

 and horses, has this advantage. In the case of cattle and horses, it 

 requires five or six years before they will bring their highest price ; 

 but in the case of swine only one and a half years are necessary to 

 bring them to maturity. But this is not the only advantage of rear- 

 ing swine, in comparison with other animals, or the only use they 

 may subserve the farm. It must be admitted that the true policy 

 of the farmer is to increase the richness and fertility of his acres, 

 by restoring to the soil as much or more than he takes from it. It 

 is a well known fact, that farms in many parts of the State are 

 "running out," as it is termed. The soil, without being replenished 

 by proper fertilizers, at last refuses to yield its increase ; and it 

 must be reclaimed or be abandoned as useless. In reclaiming these 

 worn out acres, swine are able to perform an important part. 



The uneven surface of the soil causes it to be constantly washed 

 by rains and dissolving snows, carrying each year some part of its 

 virtue to lowlands, bogs and swamps; and this process having been 

 going on for ages, the result is that we have vast deposits of muck 

 accessible to almost every farm — the dormant wealth of the soil of 

 our State. What then more natural, than to suppose that these 

 deposits "were intended by nature for the renovation of exhausted 

 fields? But this muck needs to be manufactured, as it were, and 

 no animal will perform this duty so effectually as the hog, which, 

 ever living up to his motto, "root hog or die." with grunting con- 

 tentment, pursues his daily vocation of dissecting and digesting this 

 black vegetable muck. A few days' work of the farmer with his 

 team, each year, would supply his hogs with material sufiScient to 

 manufacture many cords of the best manure. With this little 

 amount of labor and enterprise, the farmer in moderate circumstan- 

 ces, in a few years, would behold his renovated fields bending under 

 their harvest loads ; joys would fill his heart and gratitude his soul, 

 instead of that sadness and discontent, which the daily sight of 

 unfruitful fields cannot fail to produce. It is in this way only, that 

 the farmer can restore to his land the richness which nature so long 

 has been gradually removing — a work on which his lorship " hog," 

 must " have his nose." 



