236 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



growth and bring him early to maturity, without laying on too 

 much flesh. Among the various kinds of food in common use, 

 the best for growing swine are milk, boiled potatoes, wheat and 

 rye bran, with a mixture of green clover and weeds ; while 

 Indian meal and all other heavy grains should be cautiously 

 fed. 



With regard to the management of boars, they are too gen- 

 erally brought into service, while too young ; and are fattened 

 and killed when they should be in their prime. And they are 

 not always supplied with litter, sufficient to keep them clean 

 and healthy, especially in cold, damp weather. 



Levi P. Warner, Chairman. 



Experiment by Albert Montague. 



Feeding Swine. — 1 present an experiment in feeding swine 

 with cooked and with uncooked food. 



The meal, cooked and uncooked, was alike; one-half corn, 

 one-fourth oats, and one-fourth broom-seed. I cooked the meal 

 by stirring it into boiling water, and letting it boil from thirty 

 to forty minutes, by which time it would swell to three times its 

 capacity before boiling. The pigs selected were all doing well 

 upon uncooked food. I put four in two pens, side by side; 

 weighed them four diifercnt times ; kept an exact account of 

 their weight at each weighing, and weighed them about the 

 same hour of the day each time. I fed two of them with cooked 

 meal four weeks, and they were not so heavy by eleven pounds 

 as at the time I commenced. They were weighed twice during 

 the time. They ate four bushels of meal. I fed eight and one- 

 fourth bushels of meal, uncooked, to the others, and they gained 

 eighty-two pounds. I then fed the last named pigs three and 

 one-half bushels of cooked meal, and in three weeks they lost 

 four pounds. I fed five and a half bushels of raw meal to 

 those first fed on cooked food, and in three weeks they gained 

 sixty-one pounds, I think this proves conclusively that we 

 cannot fatten swine, with profit, on cooked food. Had my pigs 

 never had any meal but what had been cooked, I presume they 

 might have improved a little upon it ; but taking them from 

 uncooked and putting them upon cooked food, they did not eat 

 quite so freely at first as they otherwise might — licnce a loss. 



