HUG HOUSES AND PENS 449 



been, generally speaking, a disappointment. The author 

 has never seen one that was found by its owner more than 

 partially satisfactory for permanent use. Two principal 

 defects seemed to be that animals confined in such quar- 

 ters had insufficient warmth and light from the sun and 

 too little exercise for health and wholesome flesh-making. 

 The Breeder's Ga::ettc says. "Good hog barns are as 

 rare as angel's visits. Most of the elaborate 'hog pal- 

 aces' are inconvenient, unsanitary, uncomfortable, costly 

 and nearly worthless. . . . Yet the writer believes 

 that a good one is a possibility." 



On its face it does not seem difficult to construct, with 

 reasonable expenditure, a habitation for swine so con- 

 venient and comfortable that all their days from first to 

 last may be spent in it in that thrift which is supposed 

 to come of comfort, along with enhanced profit to their 

 owners ; but, as a matter of fact, the hog does not seem 

 to do well under such supposedly perfect conditions. 

 For his best prosperity and prolificacy, he seems to re- 

 quire more light, more liberty and closer contact with 

 fresh earth than he finds in any palace, however v^ell 

 equipped or furnished. Nature seems to have decreed 

 that treated as a song bird and kept in a gilded cage he 

 shall not be his real or better self. 



This, however, is not said to dissuade from doing so 

 those who desire and are able to build elaborate struc- 

 tures, needed for housing their swine at most but a few 

 months in a year, but rather to reassure breeders that 

 safety and success in their business are not really de- 

 pendent upon tl:e possession of such buildings. It is 

 safe to say that those who have attained either fame or 



