440 THE PIGS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



large factories, which are our best customers, go on curing all 

 the year round, and often do their largest business in the 

 summer. Moreover, it has been proved by direct experiment 

 that bacon pigs increase most rapidly upon a given weight of 

 food in summer, which is only to be expected when we consider 

 how extremely sensitive they are to cold. It will be found, when 

 we come to dwell upon these experiments, that feeding per se is 

 not profitable ; in other words, that the increase of the animal 

 from the time it is put up to its death does not equal the cost 

 of the food required to effect such increase. Hence, as a mere 

 question of profit, it will pay best to keep a lot of prolific sows, 

 making them act chiefly as the scavengers of the farm, and sell 

 the weaners. This we believe would actually pay well; but 

 then we must remember that the value of the manure depends 

 entirely upon the feeding; and sows that work hard for 

 existence are of little use as manure makers. Farming has to 

 be considered as a whole. We shall arrive at very wrong con- 

 clusions if we form our judgment only on its separate features ; 

 therefore we do believe that judicious pig feeding pays the 

 farmer, because it secures to his crops valuable manure on the 

 spot, which he could not otherwise obtain so economically. But 

 even to reach this moderate position requires careful and 

 economical arrangement. 



The elaborate series of experiments carried out by Sir J. Lawes, 

 and described in vol. xiv. of the *' Royal Agricultural Society's 

 Journal " of 1853, are of great scientific interest, since they tend 

 to elucidate the relation and valne of different kinds of food as 

 sources of meat and manure. Liebig and others had assumed 

 that the value of feeding materials depended upon the propor- 

 tions of the nitrogenous elements they contained, regarding the 

 starchy or oily ingredients as of secondary importance — a view 

 that was rational enough when it is remembered how important 

 are the functions exercised by the nitrogenised structures and 

 fluids of the animal body, but which is not borne out by actual 

 experiment, or by the relative price of different foods. Sir J. 

 Lawes contrasts the composition, feeding effects, and market 

 value of beans and barley ; the former contains nearly double 

 the amount of nitrogenous compounds, yet the cereal produces 

 the better results and commands the higher price. If our 



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