388 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



the food consumed, than the practice followed by many farmers of letting the pigs go half 

 starved for the first four or six months, thus stunting their growth until a special time for 

 commencing to fatten them is decided upon. It should be remembered that it takes a certain 

 quantity of food to supply the daily animal waste, besides maintaining the increasing growth. 

 The young animal converts more of the food given into flesh than the old animal, because the 

 waste is less in the former than the latter; while the demand for the building material for 

 the bones, muscles, nerve tissues, etc., is greater in young animals than old. 



It was formerly supposed by many that old animals would fatten more readily than 

 animals that are young, but it will require no argument to prove the fallacy of this opinion, 

 or to show that the best economy is to feed pigs all they will eat from birth, if the object is 

 to sell the animals when fat. No animal should ever be permitted to lose flesh, at any stage 

 of its growth, for it must of necessity be brought back at an increased expense of food over 

 that previously given, to bring it up to the condition when it began to fail. It is now 

 generally conceded that the most profitable time to fatten swine is when they are young, and 

 that those who keep them to full growth lose much of the profit that would result from 

 fitting them for market sooner. 



A breeder of experience says: &quot;The farmer who keeps a pig more than eight months 

 loses twenty per cent.,&quot; and advises that pigs be fattened when they are six months old. 

 Wintering hogs with a view of getting heavy weights is not to be advised, unless under 

 exceptional circumstances. The expense of feeding is too great. Pigs weighing from 200 

 to 300 pounds will bring a higher price in any market than those of any other weight, while 

 the pork from such animals is more tender, delicate-flavored, and much to be preferred for 

 home use than that of the older hogs. Such hogs cut up better into hams, bacon, etc. It 

 will cost much less to feed three pigs to a weight of 200 or 250 pounds, than it will to 

 keep a hog until he shall weigh 600 or 750 pounds, besides the pig pork would bringa higher 

 price in market. 



The weight of the stomach of different domestic animals, in proportion to each one 

 hundred pounds of live weight, is in the ox 3 Ibs. ; in the sheep 3 Ibs. ; while in the fat pig it 

 is only .66 Ib. ; so that proportionately the weight of the stomach of an ox or sheep is about 

 five times as great as that of a hog. Notwithstanding the stomach of the hog is comparatively 

 so much smaller than that of the ox or sheep, he is .a great consumer of food, and possesses 

 the ability to eat, digest, and assimilate more nutriment in a given time in proportion to his 

 size, than any other domestic animal. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert of the Experiment Station 

 at Rothamstead, England, who have made experiments in different departments of agriculture 

 for more than forty years past, show by careful tests, that while pigs are usually fed much 

 richer food than oxen and sheep, they still eat about twice as much as a sheep, in proportion 

 to their respective live weights. 



They also ascertained that 401 pounds of Indian corn meal and bran (dry) produced 

 100 Ibs. of pork, live weight; while it required 1,548 Ibs. of oil cake and clover hay, dry, 

 to make 100 Ibs. of mutton (live weight). It is well known that, in proportion to his size, 

 the pig possesses larger and more powerful assimilating organs than other domestic animals; 

 still the fact remains, that he gains much more from a given quantity of food than a well-bred 

 sheep or steer. In regard to this point, Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, the authority previously 

 referred to, say: &quot; In oxen, the stomach and contents constitute 1 1-| per cent, of the entire 

 weight of the body; in the sheep 7 per cent.; and in the pig 1 per cent. The intestines 

 and their contents, on the other hand, stand in an opposite relation; thus, of the entire body 

 these amounted in the pig to about 6 per cent.; in the sheep 3 per cent.: and in oxen 2| 

 per cent. These facts are of considerable interest, when it is borne in mind, that in the food 

 of the ruminant there is so large a proportion of indigestible woody fibre, and in that of a 

 well-fed pig, a comparatively large proportion of starch, the primary transformations of 



