. <'';? - v \f'"': 



310 COWS, SHEEP, HOGS, &C. [PART II. 



men now alive. Judge, then, how easily a pig 

 might be taught to milk a cow, and what a 

 (t saving of labour" this would produce ! 



302. It is strange what comfort men derive even 

 from the deceptions which they practice upon 

 themselves. The milk and fat pot-liquor and 

 meal are, when put together, called, in Long- 

 Island, swill. The word comes from the farm 

 houses in England, but it has a new meaning 

 attached to it. There it means the mere wash- 

 the mere drink given to store hogs. But, here 

 it means rich fatting food. " There, friend 

 " Cobbett," said a gentleman to me, as we looked 

 at his pigs, in September last, " do thy English 

 " pigs look better than these?" "No," said 

 I, " but what do these live on?" He said he 

 had given them all summer, " nothing but 

 " swill" "Aye," said I, "but what is swill?" It 

 was, for sice pigs, nothing at all, except the 

 milk of six very fine cows, with a bin of shorts 

 and meal always in requisition, and with the 

 daily supply of liquor from a pot and a spit, 

 that boils and turns without counting the cost. 



303. This is very well for those who do not 

 care a straw, whether their pork cost them seven 

 cents a pound or half a dollar a pound ; and, 

 I like to see even the waste; because it is a 

 proof of the easy and happy life of the farmer. 

 But, when we are talking of profitable agricul- 



