COWS, SHEEP, 



months old, he will lay on two pounds of fat for every one pound 

 that will, out of the same quantity of food, be laid on by an eight 

 or ten months pig. Is it not thus with every animal ? A stout 

 boy will be like a herring upon the very food that would make 

 his father fat, or kill him. However, this fact is too notorious 

 to be insisted on. 



305. Then, the young meat is not so nutritious as the old. 

 Steer-beef is not nearly so good as ox-beef. Young wethef 

 mutton bears the same proportion of inferiority to old wether 

 mutton. And, what reason is there, that the principle should 

 not hold good as to hog-meat ? In Westphalia, where the fine 

 hams are made, the hogs are never killed under three years old. 

 In France, where I saw the fattest pork I ever saw, they keep 

 their fatting hogs to the same age. In France and Germany, the 

 people do not eat the hog, as hog ; they use the hog to put fat 

 into other sorts of meat. They make holes in beef, mutton, veal, 

 turkeys and fowls, and, with a tin tube, draw in bits of fat hog, 

 which they call lard, and, as it is all fat, hence comes it that we 

 call the inside fat of a hog, lard. Their beef and mutton and 

 veal would be very poor stuff without the aid of the hog ; but, 

 with that aid, they make them all exceedingly good. Hence it 

 is, that they are induced to keep their hogs till they have quite 

 done growing : and, though their sort of hogs is the very worst 

 I ever saw, their hog meat was the very fattest. The common 

 weight in Normandy and Brittany is from six to eight hundred 

 pounds. But, the poor fellows there do not slaughter away as the 

 farmers do here, ten or a dozen hogs at a time, so that the sight 

 makes one wonder whence are to come the mouths to eat the meat. 

 In France du lard is a thing to smell to, not to eat. I like the eating 

 far better than the smelling system ; but when we are talking 

 about farming for gain, we ought to inquire how any given weight 

 of meat can be obtained at the cheapest rate. A hog in his third 

 year, would, on the American plan, suck half a dairy of cows 

 perhaps ; but, then, mind, he would, upon a third part of the 

 fatting food, weigh down four Long Island &quot; shuts&quot; the average 

 weight of which is about one hundred and fifty pounds. 



306. A hog, upon rich food, will be much bigger at the end of a 

 year, than a hog upon good growing diet : but, he will not be bigger 

 at the end of two years, and especially at the end of three years. 

 His size is not to be forced on, any more than that of a child, 

 beyond a certain point. 



307. For these reasons, if I were settled as a farmer, I would let 

 my hogs have time to come to their size. Some sorts come to it 

 at an earlier period, and this is amongst the good qualities of my 

 English hogs ; but, to do the thing well, even they ought to have 

 two years to grow in. 



308. The reader will think that I shall never cease talking about 

 hogs : but, I have now done, only I will add, that, in keeping hoga 

 in a growing state, we must never forget their lodging ! A few 



