SWINPI • 237 



MIDDLESEX SOUTH. 



Statement of Thomas J. Damon. 



The method I have taken* for fattening the pigs I offer for 

 premium, as well as all other litters, is as follows : — 



I have allowed them to run with the sow until they have 

 weaned themselves. From that time, with eleven others, they 

 liave received the milk of the dairy, with potatoes, meal and 

 scraps. The meal is a mixture of all grains, corn, rye, liarley 

 and oats. I think that one bushel of rye is equal to one and 

 one-half bushels of the corn in the mixture. Since the fall of 

 apples, half the feed of all my pigs has been of sweet apples, 

 and later in the season, mixed with pumpkins and meal, tend 

 very much to their growth and fattening. 



They are regularly fed three times a day, and by being punc- 

 tual to the stated times, a great deal of the noise that we some- 

 times hear among swine is prevented. 



Equally essential with feeding and the regularity of the same, 

 I consider a dry and comfortable place for them. I keep them 

 under the barn cellar, wliich opGns on the south side, and there 

 they have free circulation of air, and receive all necessary light 

 for them. In summer, they are bedded with sand and dry 

 loam, and in winter with straw, thus giving to them, at the 

 former time, a cool and comfortable place, and in the winter a 

 warm and dry place. 



This method I have nsed for some time, and I have always 

 been successful. 



Three of the pigs offered at the county show last year were 

 fattened this way, and when ten months old, weighed respec- 

 tively, three hundred and fifty, three hundred and sixty, and 

 three hundred and seventy pounds. The other one, on the 

 10th of April last, brought forth ten pigs, and the four offered 

 to-day for premium are of her litter. Her weight is, I think, 

 five hundred pounds, and she is heavy with pig at the present 

 time, or she would have been present to-day. 



Regarding the profit of fattening swine, when corn is sixty 

 cents a bushel, a profit can be made at a sale of six cents per 

 pound, of pork, and so on in proportion. 



Wayland, September 23, 18G2. 



