102 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



capability to take on fat. The long-bodied, long-legged, and 

 razor-backed cannot take on fat and grow in what we should 

 say a profitable or economical point of view, for he has fallen 

 back towards his ancestors in this respect ; while the hog of 

 the present day is indeed an artificial machine to consume 

 and change our milk and our corn into fat. On this point of 

 fattening hogs, we would say that there are several points 

 for consideration. After selecting what may be considered 

 a good pig, provide him a good home, a shelter from the 

 cold storms; for much food is wasted for want of a little 

 thought. Fat is but an excess of carbon ; and, if the piercing 

 winds are permitted to exercise their power, waste of food is 

 the consequence, and man cheats himself. I remember to 

 have visited, on one occasion, a farmyard where a very 

 strong, cold, icy wind was playing its revels, and two hogs 

 were trying to find some place of refuge from the bitter frost, 

 — no house to cover them ; and their pen was composed of 

 rails some seven inches apart. The story comes fresh to 

 memory of the man whose windows were minus all the glass, 

 and who, when asked why he did not have his windows 

 mended, replied that there was no necessity, for the sashes 

 kept out the coarsest of the cold. 



Much has been said about feeding for profit, and how much 

 corn will make a pound of pork. On this point men have 

 disagreed. Food properly cooked is considered for the ani- 

 mal's best interest, as less exertion of the powers of diges- 

 tion is requisite, and more time is given to quietude and 

 repose ; but all cannot conveniently cook the food, and must 

 of necessity give it in its crude state. In the United States 

 the hog-crop exceeds in value the whole cotton-crop ; and 

 the standing army of swine consume more than three hun- 

 dred millions of bushels of corn. On the matter of how 

 much corn will make a pound of pork, your committee are 

 not sufficiently posted to give any very accurate estimate, as 

 there are so many incidental matters to be taken into the 

 account. 



Albert Easton", Chairman, 



