746 



FARMER S' REGISTER. 



which has already caused a deficiency of meat, 

 reriuiring supplies from the western country ; sup- 

 plies destined to fail by an imitation of the system 

 ofagriculiure, vvhicli rendered them necessary. 



As these evils, united, are obviously killing our 

 lands, any one will cripple them, and therefore 

 a successlul effort to remove any one, is not un- 

 important, ir legislatures siiould persevere in 

 wounding agriculture by endowing hogs with a 

 right of unliiniied emigration, to and li-o, and ex- 

 posing them to the usual consequences of licenti- 

 ousness, namely, poverty, disease and death ; yet 

 agriculture may be so liir (avored, as to procure 

 some small alleviation of the pains and penalties 

 thus inflicted on her. If hogs were prohibited 

 from going at large, except with a ring in the 

 cartilage of the nose, and a yoUe with three pro- 

 jecting wings ol' six inches long, one at top and 

 one at each side, these pains and penalties would 

 be vastly diminished. The ring, besides putting 

 an end to the eradication of herbage, would coun- 

 teract the use of the nose as a wedge able to 

 pierce the best live fences, and the wings would 

 powerfully contribute to l!ie same end. 



But this remedy would reach a portion only of 

 (he evil we are considering, and will leave in full 

 operation the present expensive and insufficient 

 mode of raising meat. By prohiliiiing hogs from 

 running at large, we should be compelled to recur 

 to a new mode, which might possibly be more 

 adequate to our wants. To (brm a correct opin- 

 ion, it behoves us to reflect upon the present mode 

 ol' raising hogs, and to contrast it with that pro- 

 posed, or with more promising sugijeslionp. Our 

 subject is closed with a specimen of this mode of 

 reasoning. 



By the present mode of raising hogs, vast quan- 

 tities of wood and timber are annually destroyed : 

 by the proposed, none will be destroyed. 



By ilie present mode, much labor is lost m mak- 

 ing mouldering fences ; by the proposed, the in- 

 hibition on live fences being removed, much will 

 be saved. 



By the present mode one half of the pigs and 

 hogs perish, and a considerable portion of the re- 

 sidue are stolen ; so that less than half come to 

 the knile ; by the proposed, few will perish, fewer 

 will be stolen, and a double supply of meat may 

 be expected. 



By the present mode a great proportion of the 

 meat is lean and dry ; by the proposed, most of it 

 will be fdt and juicy. 



By the present mode, corn, generally hard, be- 

 ing chiefly relied on to raise and fatten hogs, much 

 is used and much is wasted ; by the proposed, 

 the use of the pumpkins and clover, vastly lessens 

 the use of corn, and diminishes the expense, 

 whilst it increases the meat. 



By the present mode, no return for the food is 

 made by the hog, but that of his carcass ; by the 

 proposed, he will pay for it, and in my opinion, 

 more than pay for it, by his manure. \l this is 

 wholly true, his meat paid for by the present 

 mode at a price so exorbitant, as to induce some 

 farmers to buy, rather than to raise it, will be got- 

 ten (or nothing ; if partially, this single considera- 

 tion may at least reduce the cost, far below the 

 usual price. 



The value of the clover to hogs is demonstrated 

 by the fact, that (sows giving suck excepted) 

 they will thrive and grow on it alone if allowed 



to run at large ; and yet make but a small imprea- 

 sion on the crop. The addition of corn recom- 

 mended is necessary for these sows, and highly 

 improves the other hoga. It is indispensable to 

 gentle and lure all to the pen at night. Clover cut 

 and given green to hogs in a pen, will be eaten 

 greedily, and yet the hogs will fall ofl', and would 

 I think finally perish ; nor is it by any means so 

 efficacious, united with oiher food, as if gathered 

 by the animal himself— [Note E.] 



SUCCESSION OF CROPS. 



This idea, according to the theory of manures ad- 

 vanced in several former numbers of these essays, 

 must contain much error, and all its truth must 

 be limited to the simple liicts, that the cultivation 

 of one crop will clean and pulverize the ground 

 for the reception of another, and that some crops 

 will produce these effects belter than others, either 

 as requiring more cultivation, like tobacco, as 

 killing grass and weeds by shade, like the pea and 

 pumpkin ; or as rendering the earth more friable, 

 like the potato. But an opinion that the earth 

 can be enriched by an annual succession of crops, 

 will blast every hope of its improvement, if this 

 can only be eflected by manure ; because all will 

 prefer the ease and profit of annual tillage, as a 

 mode of fertilizing the earth, to the labor and de- 

 lay ol' resting land, reducing tough swards, and 

 raising and applying manure. 



In England, a thorough manuring of ground 

 already rich, every five or six years, is allowed by 

 all authors to be indispensably necessary to fulfil 

 the promi.-^es of a succession of crops; what then 

 have we to hope from a succession of crops ap- 

 plied to ground already poor without this sex-en- 

 nial manuring? In our gardens a succession of 

 crops is seldom considered as a necessary aid to 

 annual manuring. Draw from the earth as you 

 will, it never fails, il' refilenished annually with 

 atmospherical matter; let your rotation of crops 

 be what it will, it never lasts, if this replenishment 

 is withheld. Industrious efforts, and not lazy 

 theory, can only save our ruining country. 



Trust not to the delusive promisee of a rotation 

 of crops for restoring our soil. It will agfiravate 

 the evil it pretenils to remove. It is a remedy 

 which will be greedily seized upon by the annual 

 prime ministers of a southern farm, whose tenure 

 is precarious, and whose object is sudden income ; 

 and they will with joy abandon the labor of ma- 

 nuring and improving for prospective, to gain 

 the bribe of immediate profit. 



This disposition is so ruinous already, that 1 

 have known an owner with very imperfect man- 

 agement, to liianure annually ten times more with 

 equal m.eans at the place ol his residence, than on 

 a farm some miles distant entrusted to an over- 

 seer. Money wages is one mode of curing an 

 evil sufficient without an ally to ruin our country. 

 But to give this remedy eth^cl, the apocryphal 

 opinion of recovering our lands by a succession of 

 crops, ought to be driven out by the more solid 

 reliance upon manuring and inclosing. 



Our funds for manuring are sufficient to employ 

 all our energies, and if our energies were employed 

 sufficiently to exclude all worn out land from culti- 

 vation, and to produce the sex-ennial supply of ma- 



