174 Cows, Sheep, Hoes, &c. [Part II. 



pointer of the finest nose. This fact is true beyond all 

 doubt. It is known to many men now alive. Judge, 

 then, how easily a pig might be taught to milk a cow, 

 and what a " saving of labour " this would produce ! 



302. it is strange what comfort men derive even from 

 the deceptions which they practise upon themselves. 

 The milk and fat pot^liquor and meal are, when put 

 together, called, in Long Island, sivill. The icordcome^ 

 from the farm-houses in England, but it has a new 

 meaning attached to it. There it means the mere 

 v;ash ; the mere drink given to store hogs. But, here 

 it means rich fatting food. " There, friend Cobbett," 

 said a gentleman to me, as we looked at his pigs in 

 September last, " do thy English pigs look better than 

 these V " No," said I, " but what do these live on V 

 He said he had given them all summer, " nothing but 

 ''swill." "Aye," said I, " but what is swill?" It 

 •was, for six pigs, nothing at all, except the milk of six 

 very fine cows, with a bin of shorts and meal always^ 

 in requisition, and with the daily supply of hquor from 

 a pot and a spit, that boils and turns without counting 

 the cost. 



303. This is very well for those who do not care a 

 straw, whether their pork cost them seven cents a pound 

 or half a dollar a pound ; and, I like to see even the 

 waste ; because it is a proof of the easy and happy life 

 of the farmer. But, when we are talking of profitable 

 agriculture, we must examine this swill tub, and see 

 what it contains. To keep pigs to a profit, you must 

 carry them on to their fatting time at little expense. 

 Milk comes from all the grass "you grow and almost the 

 whole of the dry fodder. Five or six cows will sweep 

 a pretty good farm as clean as the turnpike road. Pigs, 

 till welliveaned must be kept upon good food. My pigs 

 will always be fit to go out of the weaning stye at three 

 months old. The common pigs require four months. 

 Then out they go never to be fed again, except on grass, 

 greens, or roots, till they arrive at the age to be fattened. 

 If they will not keep themselves in growing order upon 

 this food, it is better to shoot them at once. But, I never 

 yet saw a hog that would not. The difference between 

 the good sort and the bad sort is, that the former will 



