314 



ments.* A commodious passage-way runs the whole length of 

 it, with the troughs projecting into the passage-way, and a shut- 

 ter for the troughs so contrived that the trough is easily cleaned 

 at any time, and the food of the hogs is placed before them 

 without admitting that which, in the usual slovenly mode 

 of feeding, is but too common, an uncivil interference on their part 

 before all is ready. Some contrivance as effectual as this for 

 another class of animals would be quite useful at some of our 

 public hotels and steamboats, and save us from the severe re- 

 marks of those foreign travellers who have little sympathy with 

 our customary dispatch of business, and seem to look upon us 

 as a nation of fire-eaters. 



The cooking apparatus is at one end. Had economy of room 

 and ease of feeding been studied, the building might have been 

 double the width, with pens on each side. In England, they 

 are sometimes made circular with the cooking apparatus in the 

 centre and the feeding troughs all within the circle ; but in such 

 cases there must be much waste of room. Mr. Cushing's bar- 

 racks are lengthwise of his cattle-yard, so that the manure from 

 the pens of his swine is thrown immediately into the yard, and 

 any litter or muck easily supplied in the same way. His store 

 hogs, too, at pleasure may be turned into the cattle-yard with 

 the advice given in iEsop's fable by the dying father to his 

 sons, " that there is a treasure buried in the field which they 

 would find by digging for it." The swine however do not 

 much need the advice. They are natural philosophers and go 

 by instinct into deep investigations. Some of them should al- 

 ways be kept in barn-yards and cellars. They are of great use 

 in turning up and mixing the manure ; and in yards where cat- 

 tle are fed upon grain, and the sweepings of the barn floors are 



*The length of this building, inchiding the cooking-place, is 252 feet, 

 width 12 feet, and height the satne. There are twenty pens, each 12 feet by 8, 

 and a yard of 12 feet attached to each pen. The number of hogs that can 

 be accommodated depends upon their sizes — from three to six, say au aver- 

 age of four of 300 weight each. There were fatted fifty-two hogs last season, 

 weighing, dressed, 15,573 lbs. 



