COWS, SHEEP, ETC. 



SPORTS, where they will find, that, in Hampshire, Sir John 

 Mildmay s gamekeeper, Toomer, taught a sow to point at 

 partridges and other game ; to quarter her ground like a pointer, 

 to back the pointers, when she hunted with them, and to be, in 

 all respects, the most docile 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 &quot; saving of labour &quot; this would produce 1 



302. It is strange what comfort men derive even from the 

 deceptions which they practice upon themselves. The milk 

 and fat pot-liquor and meal are, when put together, called, in 

 Long Island, swill. The word comes from the farm-houses in 

 England, but it has a new meaning attached to it. There it means 

 the mere wash : the mere drink given to store hogs. But, here 

 it means rich fatting food. &quot; There, friend Cobbett,&quot; said a 

 gentleman to me, as we looked at his pigs, in September last, 

 &quot; do thy English pigs look better than these ? &quot; &quot; No,&quot; said 

 I, &quot; but what do these live on ? &quot; He said he had given them all 

 summer, &quot; nothing but swill.&quot; &quot; Aye,&quot; said I, &quot; but what is 

 &quot; swill ? &quot; 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 liquor 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 expence. 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 well weaned 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 

 always be fat enough for fresh pork, and the latter will not ; and 

 that, in the fatting, the former will not require (weight for weight 

 of animal) more than half the food that the latter will to make them 

 equally fat. 



304. Out of the milk and meal system another monstrous evil 

 arises. It is seldom that the hogs come to a proper age before they 

 are killed. A hog has not got his growth till he is full two years 

 old. But, who will, or can, have the patience to see a hog eating 

 Long-Island swill for two years ? When a hog is only 15 or 16 



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