426 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 
quite comely in shape, early in maturity, of strongly-developed Sittonitet 
tendencies, and of enfeebled constitution, is the intelligent and natural — 
result. ‘An animal thus deprived in part of the constitutional vigor of — 
its ancestors, forced to give in part the instinctive habits of its race in 
obedience to the regulations of modern farming, must necessarily have © 
acquired a diseased tendency. If, under these circumstances in the era’ 
of modern swine-breeding, the animal is more exposed to causes produc- — 
ing disease, a general prevalence of disease must be the result. Do 
such causes generally prevail, which, operating upon well-known prin- 
ciples in animal physiology, are calculated to produce the disease as we 
have observed it? If not, we are forced, in the absence of visible and 
rational causes, to indulge i in hypothesis, and seek some hidden poison 
which, operating to pr oduce the disease, may, therefore, propagate it by — 
contagion. 
We have assumed that the animal of the present period is one of 
impaired constitution, and that its habits, as imposed by. the will of the 
farmer, as to food, water, cleanliness, exercise, and rest, do not approach 
so nearly a strict observance of the laws of health as do the instinetive 
habits of the animal in an unrestrained state of nature. The habits in 
the latter state have been briefly alluded to already. What are the 
altered conditions that conflict with the laws of health as imposed by 
the former state? 
FOOD. 
In considering this branch of the inquiry we will examine briefly the 
subject of food. The hog is an omnivorous animal; he eats both animal 
and vegetable food; his instinct demands and his health requires it. In 
his na tive state he obtains the animal food required by the industrious 
use of his nose in digging for worms and insects; but the most improved 
methods of medern swine-breeding have proclaimed the nose of the hog 
a useless appendage, and bred it ‘to the smallest possible size—a thing 
of beauty to adorn aring. The animal, thus deprived of the natural 
means of obtaining a supply of animal food, is forced to subsist almost 
exclusively upon vegetable diet, consisting almost wholly of corn. That 
this style of feeding long pursued i is not conducive to the highest state 
of health would seem self-evident. In the hog-growing districts, corn 
alone is often the only food fed to swine from birth to slaughtering, 
and it is in these districts that the disease is most prevalent and fatal. 
On the contrary, hogs fed the offal from milk and cheese factories, or 
from city and hotel garbage, are always most free from disease. In the 
city of New Albany, Indiana, there are more swine to the square mile 
than elsewhere in the State; their rights are somewhat sacred; they 
run in every street, sleep in ‘every alley, and break into almost ‘every 
yard: as scaveng ers they constitute a sort of independent body of health 
police, auxiliary to the board of health; the average councilman regards 
them in some sense as his constituency, and the people, therefore, “have 
vainly prayed for hog-ordinances and hog-cholera, and still the animal 
feeds upon our pounty, multiplies his race, and almost defies disease. 
WATER. 
During the dry months of the fall season it seldom happens that hogs © 
have a proper supply of good pure water, even in well-watered districts 
proy pl I 
of country: In all the herds examined where the disease prevailed, in . 
but one instance was a proper supply of pure water observed; in a large 
number of cases there was positively no water, only thin mud at the 
