8 FARMING IT 



ways kept in abominably smelling pens, fed upon 

 refuse, and breeders of typhoid fever, malaria, 

 cholera, and other kindred evils. 



I assured her that while this was perhaps fre- 

 quently so, these characteristics were not indig- 

 enous to the pigs, but were the results of improper 

 food and unsuitable sanitary arrangements so 

 painfully evident in the ordinary pig-pens, but 

 that I intended to violate all the traditions of 

 country pig - culture, by the development of 

 specimens in a condition of perfect cleanliness, 

 suitably nourished with the most approved foods. 



She replied that, while this was all very well in 

 theory, I was the very last person in the world to 

 keep up my interest in anything for any consider- 

 able period, and cited a long and painful list of 

 instances in which certain theories of mine had 

 been dissipated and thoroughly exploded, and at 

 considerable expense to me. 



I waived the citations, however, and reminded 

 her that the one common ground of neighborly 

 good feeling in a bucolic community was the pig- 

 pen, and that more comfort was obtained of a 

 Sabbath morning, and of a holiday, in leaning 

 over the pig-pen with a neighbor, smoking and 

 exchanging pastoral gossip, than in any other 

 way. 



She retorted that I would be in much better 

 business attending church on the Sabbath, and 



