Sec. 2.] 



SWINE. 



19 



SECTION II.-SWINE. 



ccdiug Pigs and Fatfing Pork. — Next to procuring 

 a good breed of swiue — that is, a breed suitable 

 to the pur^Joses for which it is required — tlie 

 best way to feed the stock Iiogs, and the cheapest and 

 best M-ay to fatten them, is the most important matter 

 for a former to consider. No man can say, " My breed 

 ■^jy is the best of all," imless he specities for what purpose it 

 is best for. A good grazing breed would be best for 

 some situations ; quite the contrary for some others. The 

 Berkshire, Essex, and Suffollc have each been denomi- 

 nated " tlie gentleman's pig," because well fitted for 

 keeping up in close pens, one or two to a family ; while a 

 much larger breed is required by the gi-eat corn-growers 

 of the West. And this brings us to the next most 

 important qucstiim. 

 3. Corn and Pork— How innch Pork will a Bnslicl of Corn make? — This 

 is one of the most important questions tliat can be asked by every man 

 who raises a bushel of corn or feeds one to a hog. Yet it is a question that 

 not one in ten can answer. To see the ignorance of mankind upon subjects 

 of most importance to them, makes us ready to exclaim. Does anybody know 

 anything about anything? In conversation with many farmers, we have 

 not yet found a man who could say how much corn it required to make a 

 hundred pounds of pork, and consequently could not fix upon any relative 

 price of one or the other, at which it would be profitable to feed corn to 

 hogs. In some experiments made by Henry L. Ellswortii, at Lafayette, Ind., 

 in warm weather, with thrifty young porkers in a pen, fed with corn in the 

 car, if wc rememl)cr aright, he gained l'21bs. of Y>ork per bushel of corn. 

 Samuel II. Clay, of Kentucky, gained ITi lbs. per bushel, feeding the corn 

 in the form of cooked meal. As a general thing, we should like to know 

 if corn, fed as it usually is in the "West, averages six pounds of pork to tlie 

 bushel of shelled corn. 



We have received several answers to this question, l)ut they only proxi- 

 mately settle the point. Leroy Huckingham, of Cadiz, Cattaraugus Co., 

 X. Y., says, a pig that weighed 52 lbs. when commenced with, fed on the 

 spare milk from one cow and 800 lbs. of raw corn-meal, weighed 3Gilbs. (live 

 or dead not stated) when killed at seven and a half months old. lie thinks 

 each bushel of corn made about 2011is. of ])ork. 



TIic two following letters wo print entire, and commend them to the careful 

 attention of all farmers, althougli tliey do not contain all tliat is necessary to 

 be known upon the sulypct: 



