270 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Both forms of overlay now in use in the piggery, were constructed 

 from second hand inch lumber; they are raised off the floor by inch 

 cleats which hold the boards together. A two-by-four was set up around 

 the outer edges of the overlay to hold the bedding in place. (A two- 

 by-six may be used.) These were nailed to the boards below and 



Fig. 41. 



strengthened by triangular pieces of scantling fastened in the angle 

 formed by the two-by-four and the board floor. In the use of these 

 overlays three facts have been strikingly noticeable, viz.: First, pigs 

 invariably use the overlays, by preference, sleeping on the bare boards 

 if there should be no straw on them ; second, of the three or four hun- 

 dred hogs that have been housed in this piggery there are few instances 

 where the bedding on the overlays has been befouled by excreta and 

 the tendency to this is much less in the case of the overlays in the pen 

 corners where the pigs are not trampling over them; third, we have not 



