236 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



when they will eat somewhat less, owing probably to the fact 

 that they move so little and take so little exercise. The time 

 then when we are to make the profit is while the pigs are mak- 

 ing the first two hundred pounds. If we can get this at little 

 cost, it will reduce the cost of the whole four hundred. If we 

 can make the first two hundred for three cents a pound, and 

 tlie second two hundred costs six cents, the whole four hundred 

 costs four and one-half cents. At six cents a pound, or even 

 at five, this will pay. But if the whole four hundred cost six 

 cents a pound, it becomes a case of doubtful expediency. 

 There are two articles of food which we would recommend, 

 which we think have not been sufficiently used for the feeding 

 of swine. These are apples and beets. Many people have 

 been a good deal exercised lest there should be too many 

 apples. But we have long since come to the conclusion, that 

 if we have more apples than we can eat we will give them to 

 the hogs. One of your committee, some years since, made a 

 very successful experiment in fattening a hog on windfall and 

 refuse apples. As apples of this description usually contain a 

 good deal of animal matter, they seem better suited to the 

 making of pork than of cider. A diet of two-thirds apples and 

 one-lhird meal will make pork just about as fast as all meal. 

 Hogs are very fond of beets and thrive remarkably well on 

 them. If they are boiled and mashed up with meal, hogs will 

 fatten on them nearly as well as on all meal. An acre of good 

 land, well manured and well cultivated, that would yield one 

 hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes, or four and one-half 

 tons, will yield from fifteen to twenty tons of beets, and we 

 think two pounds of beets are quite equal to one of potatoes, 

 as food for hogs. If we reckon the difference in the cost of 

 the seed for an acre of potatoes and an acre of beets, it' prob- 

 ably costs but little more to raise an acre of beets than an acre 

 of potatoes. With these few suggestions upon the subject of 

 food for hogs we shall close our remarks. 



Joseph Reynolds, for CommUtee. 



