HOG. 



line. 



the Mine stock the news at last produce only two or three diminutive 

 pig* at a litter. Hence the advantage of frequent crowing. To restore 

 fecundity no breed I* so effectual a* the Chinese. A breed compounded 

 of the Berkshire, Chinese, and Neapolitan, may, by careful selection, 

 produce every quality which can be desired : numerous litter*, early 

 fatting, and fine hogs for bacon at twelve or sixteen months old, ore 

 the result of care and judicious breeding. 



The black hogs are preferred on the whole. They are much less 

 subject to diseases of the skin than the white, and the sun affects 

 them leas in summer. For sucking-pigs or porkers many prefer the 

 white, merely for the appearance ; for the block akin IK in general the 

 : .-; 



There are some very large breeds, which have been recommended 

 under the idea that in a large hog the bone and offal are lets in pro- 

 portion to the flesh than in it smaller. But these large breeds do not 

 come so soon to maturity. They cannot be profitably put up to fatten 

 till eighteen or twenty months old, or more ; and although some of 

 them may make hogs of thirty or forty score when killed, they are so 

 long fatting, and require so much food, that it is very doubtful whether 

 they pay for it as well as the smaller. For delicate bacon the hogs 

 killed at a twelvemonth old, and weighing ten or twelve score, are 

 much preferred; and we are inclined to think that they are most 

 profitable. When hams ore the principal object the hogs should be 

 killed before they are so fat as they might be ; and the carcase is then 

 cut up and pickled instead of being converted into dry bacon. To 

 keep hogs profitably, a regular system should be pursued both in the 

 breeding and feeding. Proper hogstyes should be constructed, with 

 chambers in which the pigs of different ages and the breeding sows 

 may be kept separate. The food should be prepared for them by 

 boiling or steaming in an apparatus conveniently placed, and the 

 greatest cleanliness and regularity should be maintained. It is a great 

 mistake to suppose that the hog loves dirt. If he can keep himself 

 clean he will do so ; and the wallowing in the mud is not from a love 

 of dirt, but from a heat and itching in the skin in warm weather, 

 which is relieved by rolling in the cool mud. If hogs have plenty of 

 clean straw and clean water they never will be dirty, and nothing 

 makes them thrive so quick, or pleases them more, than being washed 

 and curried regularly. If the hogs are not closely confined they will 

 always lay their dung at a distance from the place where they sleep or 

 feed, and in all well constructed styes there should be a small yard to 

 each apartment, in which the hogs can deposit their dung. 



When a sow is near the time of farrowing, which is four mouths 

 after she has taken the boar, she should be put in a stye by herself, 

 with a moderate quantity of straw, for if there be too great an abund- 

 ance she is apt to lie down on the young pigs when they bury them- 

 selves in the loose straw. Sows, although very careful of their pigs, 

 are very apt to lie on them, especially when any of them are near a 

 wall. To prevent this it is very useful to have a ledge of wood six 

 inches wide and six inches from the ground all round the stye, so that 

 she cannot lie down close to the wall ; and if a young pig should be 

 accidentally behind her he can take refuge behind the ledge, and thus 

 escape being Iain upon. When no precautions are taken, one-fourth of 

 a litter is often lost in the first day or two after they ore born. Some 

 sows have the. unnatural propensity of eating their young pigs as soon 

 as they drop ; good feeding will prevent this in some measure, but 

 attention at the moment of farrowing is the safest and surest pre- 

 ventive. When once the young pigs have sucked, much of the danger 

 : - pi-:. 



A sow with many pigs should be well fed ; bran and barley -meal 

 with milk or whey is the beat food ; grains, where they ore at hand, 

 are excellent ; and it is useful to let' the sow go* out to graze in a 

 meadow or clover-field for an hour or two every day, shutting up the 

 pigs during that time till they are a fortnight or three weeks old, 

 when they may then accompany the sow. A sow will live many years 

 and bring numerous litters, and the older she is the better nurse she is 

 in general. When a sow bos ten or twelve pigs at a litter, and two 

 litters in the year, one in spring and another in autumn, she is too 

 valuable to be killed, and ought to be kept as long as she will breed. 

 But otherwise it is very profitable to let a young sow have a litter at 

 ten months old, and spay her immediately ; she will then fatten most 

 readily as soon as the pigs are weaned, and the bacon will be as good 

 as that of a maiden pig. Whenever a bow does not bring a sufficient 

 number of pigs, or is not a good nurse, or has ever eaten any of her 

 pigs, she should be spayed and fattened immediately. The young pigs 

 intended to be kept for stores or for porkers, are castrated or spayed at 

 * month or six weeks old. The males are then called larraw pigs, and 

 when fatted make the best bacon. They are usually put up at a 

 twelvemonth old, and fatted in three or four months. At first they 

 have potatoes raw or boiled, mixed with bran, or bean-meal, or they 

 have dry beans and water. After they are half fat they should only 

 have pease-meal or barley-meal and water, unless in a dairy, where 

 they have the skimmed milk or whey. Hogs fattened on potatoes only 

 do not make so good bacon as those which are fatted on com. This is 

 the reason why the home-cured bacon sells so much dearer than the 

 Irish. When a piece of raw bacon is put into the pot and swells in 

 the boiling, it is a sure sign that the hog has been well fed ; if it 

 shrinks, it may be concluded that he has been fattened chiefly on 

 potatoes. The labourers in the country, who live chiefly on bacon, 



know this well, and always purchase the best fed bacon, even at a 

 much higher price, finding it most economical. Potatoes are an excel- 

 lent food for store pigs, and may be given boiled and mixed with meal 

 in the early port of the fatting process ; but beans and peas ma I 

 firmest flesh, and barley-meal the sweetest. Before a hog i- killed ho 

 is usually fed for some time on barley-meal and water alone, given as 

 thick as porridge, and very little if any water is given to him. This 

 last rule is often carried to too great an extent. Much water will make 

 the food pass through too rapidly, and it will not be digested, but the 

 hog should never Buffer from thirst, or he will not thrive. Before a 

 hog is killed he should be kept without food for twelve hours at least. 

 He may however have water. He should be killed without giving 

 him more pain or causing more struggling than is necessary 

 resolute stab with the knife in the lower part of the neck, where the 

 knife may sever the large artery which comes directly from thi 

 The blood should be allowed to flow freely till it is all out of thr 

 The hog, if intended for salt pork, must then be scalded with water 

 not quite boiling, and well scraped to take off the hair with the cutirle ; 

 but for bacon it is best to singe the hair by burning straw o\ 

 body, and then scraping the skin. Care must be taken not to allow 

 the skin to be burnt so as to crack. The hog is then hung up, and 

 the entrails taken out. The inside of the body is washed clean with a 

 cloth or sponge dipped in water, that no blood may remain, and the 

 next day the hog is cut up. The head and feet are cut off; the chine 

 is taken out, and the upper part of the ribs, with the backbone, are 

 cut out, leaving as much flesh as possible adhering to the fat outside. 

 The small ends of the ribs remain attached to the bacon. 



J/oy-tlye. Much of the profit of breeding and fattening hogs depends 

 on the economy of labour in preparing their food. Any place i 

 thought good enough to lodge a pig in, and a stye is a word syn<niy- 

 mous with a filthy place. But in every well arranged farm-yon! t li. i . 

 should be a convenient place for keeping hogs and feeding them, vvhi.-h 

 may be erected at a small expense, and which will soon repay the 

 outlay. There should be a place to boil and mix the food in, with "m< 

 or more large coppers and a steaming apparatus. The food should !< 

 mixed in square brick tanks sunk in the ground and cement, 

 there may be no nitrations. If there in only one tank, there should ! 

 a partition hi it. From the boiling-house there should be an immediate 

 communication with the feeding-styes, under cover, if possible. Koch 

 stye should open into a small yard behind, which should communicate 

 by a door with the principal farm-yard, where the K-ini is situated in 

 which the corn is thrashed, and be enclosed with a low wall or paling. 

 There should be separate styes for breeding-sows, for porkers, and for 

 fatting hogs. Not more than three or four of the latter should be in 

 one stye. The food should be given in troughs, in a separate compart- 

 ment from that in which the hogs lie down, and no litter should be 

 allowed there. The floor, which should be of brick or stone, should 



Klcvation and Section. 







07 ~: 



A, root-honc ; n, boiling anil ntcamlng.hoiuc ; a, ntcuracr ; l>, coppc 



uteaminn-vcMtls ; rf, rf, tank to mix the food ; r, p*sage to the styes ; 

 1,1, feeding-room ; 2, 2, lpinn-room ; S, S, yards. 



be frequently washed dean, and the trough should be cleaned ,>ul 

 before every meal; any of the food left from the last in. -il should 

 be taken out and given to the store-pigs. A very oonvenia 

 trivance for keeping the troughs clean is to have a flap or d..r, 

 made with hinges, to hang horizontally over the trough so that it 



