52 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



the fallen fruit ; whereupon, as is the way with the 

 under-bred of every species when exalted, he be- 

 comes so nice as " to reject what has lain but a few 

 hours on the ground, and will continue on the watch 

 whole hours together for a fresh windfall." 



In this country, dairy-farms, flour-mills, and 

 breweries present, perhaps, the best opportunities 

 for keeping this stock ; at the latter kind of estab- 

 lishment, however, it suffers much from diseases 

 which are attributable to the too heating food it 

 gets, just as the sleek London dray-horse, indulged 

 daily with hot liquor, will often drop down dead in 

 the street, and is dangerously affected by any — the 

 very slightest — hurt, even of a nail ; and as again, 

 there have been cases of people in a bad habit of 

 body dying from the prick of a gooseberry-bush. 



The cotter's pig, which has been said alone to pay, 

 has his food usually concocted thus : a few nettles 

 boiled (too many irritate and make their skin red), 

 some dock-leaves, a few turnip-tops or small potatoes, 

 what slops, plate-washings, &c, there are to be had, 

 a little grease (it is astonishing in how great a degree 

 the oleaginous element of food, according to French 

 calculation, multiplies itself in the reproduction of 

 fat — I have mislaid my note of the exact estimated 

 ratio. Hence, in that country, it is a common prac- 

 tice to give fattening beasts a ball of pork-grease 

 night and morning to hasten their blooming), a few 

 pennyworths of brewer's grains now and then, a soap- 

 sud bath once a week, a clean bed, an occasional 

 handful of salt — (not brine, mind, that's simply 

 poison to a pig, est modus in rebus) — or a spoonful 



