568 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



orchards it refuses the peaches which have lain some time on 

 the ground after falling, and that it will wait patiently even 

 for hours till a fall of fresh peaches occurs. 



Few kinds of food come amiss to the pig. It may be fat- 

 tened on potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, mangold-wtirzel, 

 or on barley, oats, pease, beans, rice, Indian-corn. Boiled food 

 is found to answer best with the stomach of the pig. It 

 would be needless to dwell at length on the theory of feeding 

 the pig. A short commentary on the following passage from 

 * The Book of the Farm ' will suffice. " It has been ascer- 

 tained in England that 2 pecks of steamed potatoes, mixed 

 with 9 Ib. of barley-meal and a little salt, given every day to 

 a pig weighing from 24 to 28 stones, will make it ripe fat in 

 nine weeks. Taking this proportion of food to weight of flesh 

 as a basis of calculation, and assuming that two months will 

 fatten a pig sufficiently well, provided it has all along received 

 its food regularly and fully, I have no doubt that feeding with 

 steamed potatoes and pease-meal (both seasoned with a little 

 salt), and lukewarm water with a little oatmeal stirred into it, 

 given by itself twice a-day as a drink, will make any pig from 

 15 to 30 stones ripe fat for hams. The food should be given 

 at stated hours three times a-day namely, in the morning, 

 at noon, and at nightfall. One boiling of potatoes or tur- 

 nips, where these are used in the day, at any of the feeding- 

 hours found most convenient, will suffice, and at the other 

 hours the boiled roots should be heated with a gruel made of 

 barley or pease-meal and boiling water, the mess being allowed 

 a while to incorporate and cool to blood-heat. It should not 

 be made so thin as to spill over the feeding-trough, or so thick 

 as to choke the animals, but of that consistence which a little 

 time will soon let the feeder know the pigs best relish. The 

 quantity of food given at any time should be apportioned to 

 the appetite of the animals fed, which should be ascertained by 



