Ch. XLI.j ON REARING. 515 



during the summer upon tares and clover, cut green, and either carried to 

 the stye, or to a corner of the fiekl in the manner of folding. Farmers, 

 however, sometimes follow the slovenly practice of allowing them to graze 

 over the artificial grasses ; a plan which cannot be too strongly repro- 

 bated, both as occasioning great waste of food and manure. They are 

 likewise not uncommonly turned into the woods to feed on acorns and beech- 

 mast, and upon tlie stubble fields to pick up what corn may be scattered 

 from the sheaves. They have also been folded with considerable advan- 

 tage upon potatoes, which they grub up without any expense, appear- 

 ing also to relish them more than when given them in any other 

 way ; and they bed themselves among the haulm, besides leaving 

 a large quantity of dung upon the ground*. Green food of every 

 description may, indeed, be served to them ; among which beans pulled 

 up green are said, upon the authority of Sir John Sinclair, to be so 

 advantageous, that when pork is worth 4^. 10c?. per stone, the profit 

 upon a fair crop will amount to 101. per acre f. The feeding of 

 stores being, indeed, rather to improve their growth than the quality of 

 their flesh, it can generally be attained by any thing that will fill their 

 bellies ; but although said to hold good condition when soiled upon the 

 artificial grasses, or even when grazed in the pastures, yet a small quantity 

 of pease or beans should always be given to them at night, both to warm 

 their stomachs and to induce them to return quietly home : the cost will 

 not be thrown away, nor can the improvement which it will occasion, both 

 in the quantity and quality of the flesh, be otherwise expected. 



When turned abroad, it is necessary to ring them in order to pre- 

 vent them from grubbing up the ground ; and a small frame strongly 

 made in a triangular form with three pieces of wood is sometimes fas- 

 tened round their necks, to deprive them of the means of breaking through 

 gates and fences. The ring is of iron, fixed in the snout when the pig is 

 young, and by the tenderness which it occasions deprives him of the power of 

 further mischief; but either the ring or the cartilage sometimes gives way, 

 and the operation has again to be performed, in consequence of which two 

 other modes have been adopted to etfect the same object: one, by paring 

 otF, v/ith a sharp razor, the gristle of the snout ; and the other, by cutting 

 the two strong tendons of the snout, about an inch and a half from the nose. 

 It is said, that this may be done without prejudice to the animal, when 

 about two or three months old, as the wounds soon heal and occasion very 

 little pain ; on which, however, a writer in the Encyclopsedia Britannica 

 gravely remarks, " That so far as he can credit the testimony of the pig, it 

 certainly seems to think otherwise, and seldom refrains from expressing its 

 dissent in a very unequivocal manner." 



PRODUCE. 



The importance of the value of swine, even if only bred without any 

 other regard to profit than the manure, is so well known to every farmer, 

 that they are very generally reared to the utmost extent that they can be fed, 

 as stores, with due economy ; and in this view, it has been calculated by 

 Browne of Markle, that one should be reared and fattened upon every six 

 acres of land under corn crop ; and, by Henderson, upon seven acres and 

 a half, with no other food than the refuse of the cattle, the kitchen, and the 

 dairy, together with some tares and clover during the summer, and roots 

 in the winter. To keep up a stock of forty, in addition to what they 



* See Bath Papers, vol. viii. art. xxiii., and vol, ix. art. xxix. 

 ■\ Scottish Husbandry, vol. ii. 18. 



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