50 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



of an extremely useful sort. In place of the gaunt 

 greyhound " jintleman that paid the rint," which it 

 was thought Pat never would resign, they have now 

 a fleshy, solid, side-of-bacon kind, smacking strongly 

 of a Berkshire cross. As regards the most profitable 

 mode of keeping this useful animal, from Mr. Hux- 

 table's barley calculation to Mowbray's statement 

 that " a hundred pounds laid out in swine will return 

 a greater profit than the same sum invested in any 

 other kind of live stock," adhuc sub judice lis est. 

 Frequent and hot have been the discussions on the 

 subject ; many successful in the pig line affirming 

 that the sole profit lies in the manure ; though after 

 all, by the scientific, pig manure is considered cold 

 and comparatively poor. "Only when they are 

 highly fed for the purpose of fatting does their 

 manure become of any value. Pig-dung contains a 

 large proportion of water and but little nitrogen, and 

 therefore is slowest to undergo decomposition. This 

 arises from the miscellaneous nature of their food, 

 and the fact that their digestive organs being very 

 powerful, they exhaust the substances on which they 

 are fed. It developes very little heat while under- 

 going putrefaction, and yields but little ammonia. 

 Eschew growing esculents with pig manure, as it 

 communicates a very disagreeable flavour to them : 

 owing to a substance peculiar to the excrement of 

 the pig, a volatile element at present imperfectly 

 known." (The Farmer's Reason Why.) Mortimer, 

 again, deemed hog's dung one of the fattest and most 

 beneficial sorts of dung, one load of which will go as 

 far as two loads of other dung ; a rich dung for corn 



