506 SWINE IN AMERICA 



If a boar is properly castrated five months before 

 slaughtering there should be no disagreeable flavor or 

 odor to his flesh. In case of incomplete castration, or 

 where enough of a gland was left to keep up sexual ex- 

 citement, the meat might still be affected. When the 

 animal is alive there is no way to determine positively 

 whether or not its flesh is free from offensive taint. 

 Usually if the wound caused by castration has healed, 

 and the activity and instincts peculiar to a boar have 

 disappeared, and he has become fat, the meat will be 

 edible. The meat of boars five or six months old can 

 usually be eaten six weeks after castration. The flavor 

 usually begins to disappear as soon as sexual activity 

 ceases, and the animal begins to fatten ; and it should be 

 entirely gone by the time the average fleshed boar is well 

 fitted for market. 



TO SPAY SOWS 



"One man should be in the pen to catch, and two to 

 hold the sow, by the feet alone, flat on the ground on her 

 right side, and stretched out tightly. The spayer, kneel- 

 ing at the sow's back, will cut the hair off of the place 

 where the incision is to be made (a little back of the last 

 rib, and about midway up and down) ; then cut a gash — 

 if on a hundred-pound shote, about one-half inch deep 

 and 3 inches long, up and down ; slip the flesh back each 

 way, about an inch, making a round gash or wide in- 

 cision ; then turn the knife, and stick the blade straight 

 in, gently, deep enough to go through the peritoneal 

 lining, or inside striffen, at the upper corner of the in- 

 cision. Then put the left forefinger in, and with it and 



