COWS, SHEEP, ETC. 



However, they eat the turnips too before they left off. The second 

 who came on the afternoon of the same day, saw the hogs eat some 

 bulbs chopped up. The hogs were pretty hungry, and the 

 quantity of turnips small, and there was such a shoving and 

 pushing about amongst the hogs to snap up the bits, that the 

 gentleman observed, that they &quot; liked them as well as corn.&quot; 



300. In paragraph 134 I related a fact of a neighbour of mine in 

 Hampshire having given his Swedish turnips, after they had borne 

 seed, to some lean pigs, and had, with that food, made them fit 

 for fresh pork, and sold them as such. A gentleman from South 

 Carolina w r as here in July last, and I brought some of mine which 

 had then borne seed. They were perfectly sound. The hogs ate 

 them as well as if they had not borne seed. We boiled some in 

 the kitchen for dinner ; and they appeared as good as those eaten 

 in the winter. This shews clearly how well this root keeps. 



301. Now, these facts being, I hope, undoubted, is it not sur 

 prising, that, in many parts of this fine country, it is the rule to 

 keep only one pig for every cow ! The cow seems as necessary 

 to the pig as the pig s mouth is necessary to his carcass. There 

 are, for instance, six cows ; therefore, when they begin to giva 

 milk in the spring, six pigs are set on upon the milk, which is 

 given them with a suitable proportion of pot liquor (a meat pot) 

 and of rye, or Indian, meal, making a diet far superior to that of 

 the families of labouring men in England. Thus the pigs go on 

 till the time when the cows (for want of moist food) become dry. 

 Then the pigs are shut up, and have the new sweet Indian corn 

 heaped into their stye till they are quite fat, being half fat, mind, 

 all the summer long, as they run barking and capering about. 

 Sometimes they turn sulky, however, and will not eat enough of 

 the corn ; and well they may, seeing that they are deprived of 

 their milk. Take a child from its pap all at once, and you will find, 

 that it will not, for a long while, relish its new diet. What a 

 system ! but if it must be persevered in, there might, it appears 

 to me, be a great improvement made even in it ; for, the labour 

 of milking and of the subsequent operations, all being performed 

 by women, is of great inconvenience. Better let each pig suck 

 its adopted mother at once, which would save a monstrous deal 

 of labour, and prevent all possibility of waste. There would ba 

 no slopping about ; and, which is a prime consideration in a dairy 

 system, there would be clean milking : for, it has been proved by 

 DOCTOR ANDERSON, that the last drop is fourteen times as good as 

 the first drop ; and, I will engage, that the grunting child of the 

 lowing mother would have that last drop twenty times a day, or 

 would pull the udder from her body. I can imagine but one 

 difficulty that can present itself to the mind of any one disposed 

 to adopt this improvement ; and that is, the teaching of the pig 

 to suck the cow. This will appear a difficulty to those only who 

 think unjustly of the understandings of pigs : and, for their 

 encouragement, I beg leave to refer them to DANIEL S RURAL 



136 



