COWS, SHEEP, 



boards, flung carelessly over a couple of rails, and no litter beneath, 

 is not the sort of bed for a hog. A place of suitable size, large 

 rather than small, well sheltered on every side, covered with a 

 roof that lets in no wet or snow. No opening, except a door 

 way big enough for a hog to go in ; and the floor constantly well 

 bedded with leaves of trees, dry, or, which is the best thing, and 

 what a hog deserves, plenty of clean straw. When I make up my 

 hogs lodging place for winter, I look well at it, and consider, 

 whether, upon a pinch, I could, for once and away, make shift to 

 lodge in it myself. If I shiver at the thought, the place is not good 

 enough for my hogs. It is not in the nature of a hog to sleep in 

 the cold. Look at them. You will see them, if they have the 

 means, cover themselves over for the night. This is what is done 

 by neither horse, cow, sheep, dog nor cat. And this should 

 admonish us to provide hogs with warm and comfortable lodging. 

 Their sagacity in providing against cold in the night, when they 

 have it in their power to make such provision, is quite wonderful. 

 You see them looking about for the warmest spot : then they 

 go to work, raking up the litter so as to break the wind off ; and 

 v/hen they have done their best, they lie down. I had a sow that 

 had some pigs running about with her in April last. There was 

 a place open to her on each side of the barn. One faced the east 

 and the other the west ; and, I observed, that she sometimes took 

 to one side and sometimes to the other. One evening her pigs 

 had gone to bed 011 the east side. She was out eating till it began 

 to grow dusk. I saw her go into her pigs, and was surprised to 

 see her come out again ; and therefore, looked a little to see what 

 she was after. There was a high heap of dung in the front of 

 the barn to the south. She walked up to the top of it, raised her 

 nose, turned it very slowly, two or three times, from the north 

 east to the north-west, and back again, and at last, it settled at 

 about south-east, for a little bit. She then came back, marched 

 away very hastily to her pigs, roused them up in a great bustle, 

 and away she trampled with them at her heels to the place on the 

 west side of the barn. There was so little wind, that I could not 

 tell which way it blew, till I took up some leaves, and tossed them 

 in the air. I then found, that it came from the precise point 

 which her nose had settled at. And thus was I convinced, that 

 she had come out to ascertain which way the wind came, and, 

 finding it likely to make her young ones cold in the night, she had 

 gone and called them up, though it was nearly dark, and taken 

 them off to a more comfortable berth. Was this an instinctive, 

 or was it a reasoning proceeding ? At any rate, let us not treat 

 such animals as if they were stocks and stones. 



309. Poultry. I merely mean to observe, as to poultry, 

 that they must be kept away from turnips and cabbages, especially 

 in the early part of the growth of these plants. When turnips 

 a re an inch or two high a good large flock of turkeys will destroy 

 a n acre in half a day, in four feet rows. Ducks and geese will do 



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