ROTATION OF CROPS. 409 



ing on a fence than anything else?" We take ourselves thither and discover 

 that this is the swine department of this great agricultural fair, the very loca- 

 tion of which and the manner in which it is fitted up plainly say that the 

 society has passed judgment on this department of their show and decided 

 that it was of little moment. Well, brother farmers, they are not wholly to 

 blame for this. They have only echoed the very ideas that some farmers 

 seem to possess, judging from the manner in which they treat their own 

 swine. How often do we find huddled together a half dozen or more poor, 

 gaunt, shiveriu:^ pigs, their bed the cold, wet ground, their shelter the rail 

 fence. How about their feeding ground? " Oh, that is all right," says the 

 farmer, if the mud and filth is not more than six inches deep. The farmer 

 gets a half dozen ears of mouldy corn and into this filth they are thrown for 

 the poor, starved pigs to fish out as best they can. This constitutes their 

 days rations. Then Mr. Farmer turns to us and says that he does not go very 

 much on hogs any way, and that he never could make them pay. This same 

 man will talk to you by the hour about that fine Hambletonian colt of his, 

 telling you of his wonderful speed, his long pedigree and the wonderful per- 

 formances of some of his remote ancestors. This man will be fortunate if he 

 does not squander half his farm on this colt in trying to make a trotter of 

 him, and in the end have on his hands a broken down horse, worth perhaps 

 seventy-five or one hundred dollars. This is the kind of educators that our 

 Agricultural societies are fast becoming. 



Well, let us see about this poor, despised industry. Take the statistics of 

 the Chicago stock yards, and what do we find? During the year 1886 there 

 were 6,718,761 hogs received there, and this was a decrease from the year 

 before to the amount of 218,774 hogs. On December 5, 1884, Chicago received 

 66,597 hogs. Forthe week ending November 20, 1880, 300,488, for the month 

 of November of the same year 1,111,997, and for the whole of 1880 7,059,- 

 305 were received. Within the last twenty years Chicago has received 90,- 

 983,543 hogs, representing in value more than one billion of dollars. While 

 I would not advise any farmer to make a speciality of raising swine,. each one 

 should raise a limited number, and give them just as good care and attention 

 as you do the rest of your animals, and you will probably find in the end that 

 they have paid you as well in a series of years as any of your stock. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



BY ALDEJf B, SWIFT. 

 [Read at the Charlotte Institute January 17, 1887.1 



With all the practice of the centuries, it was not until science began to 

 be applied to agriculture that we find the greatest progress made in this 

 noble calling. Among the many ways in which agriculture has been bene- 

 fited by the application of science, none have been more important than the 

 methods of increasing and maintaining the fertility of the soil, and notable 

 among these is the system of rotation of crops. It was not left for the 

 present age to discover that a continual cropping of the land by the same 

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