212 DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



necessary than when operations are carried on on the most extensive 

 scale. i3oth the floor of the hut and that of the little court should be 

 paved, and should incline outward ; along the lowest side should be a 

 drain, \\ith a sufficient declination, and so contrived as to communicate 

 with your duno-tank. The farther the manure-heap, or tank, from the 

 dwelling, the better : vegetable matter, in progress of decomposition, 

 gives rise to pestilential vapors, or miasmata. 



When the weather is fine, a few hours' liberty will serve the health 

 and the condition of your hog, and a little grazing would be all the 

 better. Should you be desirous of breeding, and keep a sow for that 

 purpose, you must, if you have a second hog, provide a second sty, for 

 the sow will require a separate apartment when heavy in pig, and when 

 giving suck. This may be easily effected by building it against that 

 which you have already erected, thus saving the trouble of raising 

 more walls than are absolutely necessary ; and it need not have a court 

 attached to it, should it be inconvenient for you to have one, as the best 

 accommodation can be given up to the breeding sow, and your pigs will 

 do well enough with a single apartment, if not too confined, and it have 

 sufficient ventilation ; and if you permit them the advantage of taking 

 air for a few hours daily. The extensive feeder should have a boiler of 

 large size, properly fitted up, and an apparatus for steaming, as some 

 vegetables are cooked in this mode more advantageously than by boiling. 

 The poor man can use a pot as a substitute for a boiler, remembering in 

 every case to clean it before using. Food should be presented to swine 

 in a warm state — neither too hot nor too cold. 



A sty should be about seven or eight feet square, and the court about 

 ten feet. The second sty need not be more than six feet square, and 

 does not absolutely require a court. 



Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding. — In the selection of a boar and sow for 

 breeding, much more attention and consideration are necessary than 

 people generally imagine. It is as easy, wMth a very little judgment and 

 management, to procure a good as an inferior breed ; and the former is 

 infinitely more remunerative, in proportion to outlay, than the latter can 

 possibly ever be. In selecting the parents of your future stock, you must 

 bear in mind the precise objects you may have in view, whether the 

 rearing for pork, or bacon ; and whether you desire to meet the earliest 

 market, and thus realize a certain profit, with the least possible outlay 

 of money, or loss of time ; or whether you mean to be contented to await 

 a heavier although somewhat protracted return. If bacon, and the late 

 market be your object, you will do well to select the large and heavy 

 varieties, taking care that the breed has the character of being possessed 

 of those qualities most likely to insure a heavy return, viz. : growth and 

 facility of taking fat, relatively possessed by each. To that description 

 we refer the reader. If his object be to produce pork, he will find his 

 account in the smaller varieties; such as arrive with greatest rapidity at 

 maturity, and which arc likely to produce the most delicate flesh. In 

 producing joor^, it is not desirable that it should be too fat ^ without a 

 corresponding proportion of lean ; and on this account, rather take a 

 cross-bred sow than a pure Chinese stock, from which the over-fattening 

 results might most naturally be apprehended. The Berkshire, crossed 



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