SWINE. 235 



most people, especially when pork is used in preparing the 

 favorite Sunday dinner of baked beans. The vegetarians may 

 talk about buttered beans, or beans baked in creain, but with- 

 out a good piece of pork with a lean streak in it, in the bean- 

 pot, we fear this part of the Sunday service would soon cease, 

 and like the pillions and foot stoves which were once so com- 

 mon, become obsolete. 



The first two hundred pounds of a four hundred hog are 

 made cheaper than the second two hundred pounds, and every- 

 body says that the pork of a two hundred pound hog is the 

 sweetest. It would seem then that it would be more profitable 

 to kill the hogs when they had arrived at about that size. But 

 there are two sides to this proposition, as to most others. The 

 pork of a four hundred hog will bring a cent a pound more 

 in the market than the pork of a two hundred hog ; and then 

 our people, farmers and Irishmen alike, have a pride in making 

 four hundred hogs, and it is very doubtful if the practice of 

 killing hogs when they will weigh about two hundred, will ever 

 become popular. A cross of the Suffolk and Chester County 

 hogs is probably as good a breed as we have at present, as they 

 fatten easily and grow sufficiently large. So that our fifst 

 question is answered. 



With respect to the food and management, a good deal may 

 be said. In the first place, we do not believe in keeping hogs 

 to work. It is cheaper to employ a man to overhaul manure 

 than to employ hogs. If a hog is kept at all, it should be to 

 grow and fatten. If he works, he will eat more and grow less. 

 We all know that a horse or ox that works hard requires much 

 more food to keep him fat than one that is idle. If you would 

 have a hog work, especially if he has a strain of Suffolk blood 

 in him, you must give him but little nutritious food, and then 

 you will have his work only for his keeping, for he will make 

 but little fat. But we believe it is more profitable to keep a 

 hog growing and fattening from his youth up. But, as we have 

 already intimated, hogs, until they weigh about two hundred, 

 may be kept cheaper than they can be afterwards. Milk, grass 

 vegetables fed to them regularly and in proper quantities, with 

 a little meal, will keep them in good growing condition and 

 sufficiently fat. After that, they require more meal, or its 

 equivalent in some other grain, until they become quite fat, 



