THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 365 



you, please. If none have tried it, we will drive down a stake, and write on 

 it, this scheme has been copyrighted by The Farmer for the benefit or 

 its readers. If a farmer can get twenty bushels of peas from one acre, 

 and if he can enrich his land in so doing at the same time, and if he can 

 turn those peas into pork at no greater cost than that involved in plowing 

 and harrowing the land and sowing the seed including the cost of seed, 

 he is certainly engaged in a good business. 



AGE FOR MATING SWINE. 



A. J. Love joy, in Breeders' Gazette. 



Subscribers in Norfolk, Va., and Greensboro, N. C, ask at wbat age 

 a boar should begin to be used in service to obtain best results, and at 

 what age should a sow be bred for best individual good of the sow and 

 for the best and largest pigs. 



If you want to get the largest size possible in your boar and sow 

 individually do not use them till well on to maturity, or at least until they 

 are a year old. This gives you a chance to get a large growth on either 

 before being put to breeding and will in the case of the sow make her 

 about sixteen months of age before she farrows. If well fed and properly 

 cared for she would be a sow of 450 to 550 pounds and should farrow a 

 litter of very strong pigs and of good size. The boar might, to be sure 

 that he was a prompt server, be used to a sow or two as early as six or 

 eight months, as sometimes when a boar is well fed and pushed to get 

 a large growth and has never had a sow till a year old he will refuse to 

 serve at first, and you might think him a failure. Patience is generally 

 needed in commencing to use a young boar. After once used he is gen- 

 eraly all right and if so the older, up to a year, before giving him much 

 service the better. You will, however, find that either the sow or boar 

 will produce a better litter the second time than the first, and if the sow 

 proves a good breeder and suckler I would recommend the raising of two 

 litters a year from her till she is too old to produce well. In our own 

 business we are great believers in old breeding animals, and sometimes 

 keep them till ten to twelve years old. 



As to the best feed for fattening pigs at the age of two months, and 

 whether they should have a run on pasture or not, I would certainly say 

 give them pasture by all means and all the good rich slop composed of 

 shorts and milk, and shelled corn soaked, that they can eat. They will 

 fatten and grow at the same time. If the pigs were of a weight of 100 to 

 150 pounds and you wanted then to get them fat for market as quickly 

 as possible I would feed nothing but the corn and grass. Comfortable 

 quarters secure from hot sun or cold storm should of course be had. 



