'44 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



Moveable pens, as in the case of cattle, are 

 best in the warm seasons of the yrar ; in the cold, 

 a farm-pen shelter also, open to the south, and 

 closed to the ground towards the oihor three car- 

 dinal points, will suffice to the 39lh deirree of north 

 latitude. This pen sliould he regularly littered 

 with stalks, straw or litter of any kind. 



Under the system of inclosing, ihe sheep may 

 be managed like horned cattle, except that they 

 must be better led. For this purpose ihey 

 ought to be attended by a shepherd, that besides 

 the grazing allowed to the cattle, they may be 

 treated with such parts of the inclosed area, as 

 they may benefit or not injure. Of the first de- 

 Bcription, are grounds infijsted with garlic, over 

 which the sheep should be rapidly carried after it 

 has headed, to eat its seed ; of the second, the 

 banks of rivers, rivulets of woodland. In winter, 

 the sheep will eat every thing, and the better the 

 food the more they will thrive. A great quantity 

 of corn, caught Boft by frost, most of which became 

 quite black, and all of it such as to be refused by 

 hogs, was greedily eaten by sheep ; and the sup- 

 ply being copious, made the best hock 1 ever saw. 

 In winter, their farm pen is made in the field to be 

 cultivated in corn, the following summer, in which 

 field the sheep are then allowed daily to feed under 

 the superintendence of the shepherd. Being co- 

 vered with the dry litter of clover, the little gras^ 

 they get under it is of some service to ihom, and 

 the litter itself is more conveniently disposed for 

 the plough by being trodden down. 



Few animals do us more real mischief, and 

 sufi'er more unmerited reproach than these. They 

 are the cause of dead wood Itinces, which render 

 more labor unproductive, than any item of the 

 long agricultural catalogue of practices, portrayed 

 in the miserable countenance of our country. 

 A consumption of labor in making ephemeral 

 fiances, which might be employed in making food, 

 clothing or lasting imjirovemenis, is a check up- 

 on population even greater than tlie English and 

 Spanish sheep system ; but if we add to it, 

 the impoverishment ol land, and waste of her- 

 bage, by the eradicating license legally confer- 

 red on hogs, it will require but a small poriion of 

 prophetic skill to anticipate the impeachment of 

 our agricultural system, to be gradually pronoun- 

 ced by the census. We shall however long strug- 

 gle against the admonitions of this unerring logi- 

 cian, by assigning to the allurements of a wilder- 

 ness, emigrations resulting from a polic}'^ and a 

 system; incapable of withstanding these allure- 

 ments, compared with all the benefits olour culti- 

 vation. Our system of agriculture is liilt as a 

 greater evil than no system. A country wanting 

 people with actual tillage on its side, is robbed of 

 a great portion of" the i'ew it has, by one exposed 

 10 every evil except our agricultural system. Uut 

 we ascribe the expulsions caused by its impover- 

 ishment to the attractions of putrefying forests, of 

 an exposure to all weather, of innumerable hard- 

 ships, and of Indian scalping knives, and lose the 

 faculty of seeing their cause where we tread, by 

 ascribing it to imaginary notions. 



The destruction of wood and timber, produced 



by the mode ofraising hogs according to law, ex- 

 clusive of the depopulation it advances, is iiself a 

 calamity grievous in all quarters, but ruinous ta 

 those unpossessed of coal for fuel, and sione for 

 tijncing. This destruction increases in a ratio cor- 

 respondent to the din)inulion of our means lo bear 

 it ; because the young wood and timber used lor 

 fences, fuel and building, is more subject to decay 

 than the old ; and a perseverance in prejudice 

 cannot be more amply displayed, than by an ex- 

 pectation of resisting with tender saplings, a prac- 

 tice which has demolished the tough forests oloak. 

 All the calamities arising from lences of dead 

 wood, are ascribed to these ill-fated animals, as if 

 they had themselves forced upon uo the system 

 which has produced these calamities ; just as the 

 impoverishment of our lands is ascribed to Iudiar> 

 corn, as if that had dictated the system of agricul- 

 ture b}"^ which it is efl!'ected. Eut it is neither new, 

 nor unnatural, to mistake our best benel'actors li>f 

 our worst enemies. 



Yet a single question refutes the caiamny. Did 

 the hogs enact the laws, by which they are fum- 

 ed loose, without rings in the nose, or yokes on the 

 neck lo root out the herbage, and assail the in- 

 closures? Had they been legislators, self-interest 

 (allowing them wisdom) would have suggested 

 to them a mode of coming at subsistence, infinite- 

 ly better than one, by which they are exposed lo 

 disasters, hunger, poverty and assassination. 



Excluding from the argument all the mischiefs 

 flowing from the system of raising hogs hitrodiiced 

 by law, and confining the question simply to the 

 mutual interest of the hog and his owner in the 

 points of comlbrt, profit and plenty, we gain con- 

 viction of its imperfection, by placing it on its 

 strongest ground. 



Meat is the end in view. No animal furnishes 

 better than the hog. If there is any other which 

 will furnish more at less expense, in a dry coun- 

 try, or which possesses more congruiiy with In- 

 dian corn, where that is the chief fund f()r subsis- 

 tence, it ought to be preltjrred ; if not, the hog de- 

 serves more attention than he has hitherto receiv- 

 ed. In the maize country, the existence of no 

 such animal is admitted, by the general recourse 

 to the hog as the chief resource for meat ; and the 

 first question is, whether he is made to answer 

 the purpose for which he has been thus selected. 



The iiict is too notorious lo require proof. The 

 maize Atlantic districts raise an insufficiency of 

 meat for their own consumption, by means of an 

 animal selected on account of his peculiar fitness 

 for the object. A failure in the object with the 

 best means of attaining it, is the strongest evidence 

 of the misapplication ofthose means. 



Though this supply of meat from hogs is insuffi- 

 cient, it is yet considerable, and far exceeding the 

 quantity furnished by all other animals. But it is 

 still considered by a pecuniary computation as an 

 unprofitable business to raise them. If there is 

 any foundation for this opinion, drawn from a 

 computation which excludes all the mischiefs ari- 

 sini; from dead lences, it determines the mode of 

 raising them to be exclusively erroneous. 



This pecuniary loss must arise from Ihe mode 

 of raising them, in those districts where hogs are 

 the best resource for meat, unless we suppose that 

 nature has treated these districts with such severi- 

 ty, as to provide no animal to supply a moderate 

 comfort, except at an expense which must exclude 



