FEEDING HOGS. 155 



go out regularly to graze in the pastures, while hogs of other 

 breeds will lie about and soon become sickly and diseased. I 

 have observed that my young hogs follow the plow for sev- 

 eral hours at a time in the furrow, picking up all the grubs, 

 worms and roots which they could find. 



When the hog cholera raged in our neighborhood, and hogs 

 were dying off daily, I turned mine into an orchard where 

 nothing had been for sometime with good effect, for the hogs 

 soon began eating the roots of the common burdock that had 

 been growing under some old trees. At times hogs crave lime, 

 and it is a good plan to give it with ashes, salt, and a little sul- 

 phur. Hogs should at all times have access to water after 

 feeding corn. Nothing is better than a spring, particularly in 

 Winter and Summer. As soon as hogs have eaten dry corn 

 they will travel some distance to drink. 



FEEDING. 



Do not call hogs out of their warm nests too early in the 

 morning. Let the sun get up first and warm the air a little in 

 cold weather, and do not call them up to feed until late in the 

 evening, as in fine weather all will not have come in from the 

 fields until dark. Provide different sleeping places, so that too 

 many will not lie together ; if the places for the smaller pigs are 

 the warmer, they will crawl into them through holes just large 

 enough to admit them, and in this way they will divide into 

 several lots. That the Berkshires will withstand the cholera 

 I know from experience, and I notice from the reports of the 

 commission appointed by the government, and published in the 

 agricultural report for 1878, that the Berkshires were the only 

 hogs that did not die of the disease when exposed to it at the 

 experimental station. I think that my hogs have had the disease 

 several times, but it did not prove fatal, and they were enabled 

 from their healthy condition and strong constitution to come 

 out of it all right. I used no medicine except to disinfect the 

 premises occasionally when I noticed a disagreeable smell, by 

 scattering about a little crude carbolic acid. This can be pur- 

 chased by the gallon and is easily applied as follows : 



