FAEMEKS' INSTITUTES. 395 



less number of acres and more bushels on each acre? May we all learn that 

 true independence and wealth consists not in a large amount of any single crop, 

 but in having a medium amount of a large variety of crops. 

 '«' Time speed the hour when we may point with pride to an increasing ratio of 

 production of our cereals, and our beloved peninsular State be second to none 

 in the quality of these productions. 



BKEEDIJSTG AND FEEDING HOGS. 



BY MK. FRANK GULLEY, OF DEARBORN. 

 [Read at the Ypsilanti Institute.] 



It has become a well established fact that in Michigan what is known as mixed 

 husbandry is generally more profitable than any one specialty. There are men 

 who have become wealthy from raising one particular crop, but the great mass 

 of farmers sooner or later will find it to their pecuniary interest to produce 

 several commodities for sale, either beef, pork, or mutton, or some of the 

 different grains, vegetables, or fruits. We have not the rich prairie lands of 

 some of the western States, that will grow paying crops of wheat or corn for 

 years in succession, and we must therefore include in oiu- crops the breeding and 

 feeding of some of the domestic animals, not only for the purpose of converting 

 our rough feed into meat, wool, or milk, to be turned into money, but also to 

 furnish manure to keep up and increase the fertility of our soil. 



Without further introduction I wish to call your attention to the merits of 

 the pig, believing the growing of pork, in connection with other farm produc- 

 tions, can be made profitable by good farmers in almost any portion of our 

 State. Many have an idea that we cannot compete with the great corn-pro- 

 ducing States in the growing of pork, but it seems to be the natural order of 

 things in agriculture that when we undertake to carry any one specialty beyond 

 a certain limit something arises that eventually makes the losses more than bal- 

 ance profits, as, for instance, the men who are engaged exclusively in fruit meet 

 with embarrassing losses, by cold winters, hot summers, blight, insects, — last 

 year by an over-production. The tendency is to dissuade men from going into 

 fruit exclusively, and to make it one of several crops. The same is true in 

 regard to raising grain, cattle, sheep, or hogs. The western farmers who have 

 formerly raised hogs by the hundreds and thousands, are obliged, through fear 

 of heavy losses by the cholera, to reduce their herds and direct a portion of their 

 labor in some other channel. This, with the enormous demand for exportation, 

 promises more stability in the price of pork than in almost any other agricul- 

 tural product. While our western brother farmers have our sincere sympathy 

 for their misfortune in not being able to keep up their immense herds of swine, 

 yet we are inclined to look upon the bright side of the picture and not murmur 

 at the inscrutable will of a Divine Providence whereby the price of pork is raised 

 two or three cents per pound, enabling us in our State to fatten a few pigs with 

 as much or more profit than any thing else we raise. 



We are often asked which is the best breed of pigs. I wish to say right here 

 that we make it a part of our business to breed and sell thoroughbred Essex 



