176 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



after five months' feeding, was 395, 380, 343. A bushel of meal 

 made nine and three-fourths pounds of pork. His pork cost 

 him nine cents per pound. 



One of your Committee bought three six weeks old pigs, 

 Mackay and Chester County, in early spring. Their weight 

 was thirty pounds each. He fed them forty-six bushels of 

 grain, two-thirds corn and one-third oatmeal, which cost $43.78. 

 Their dressed weight, at eight and one-half months old, was 

 321, 295, 271. A bushel of meal made sixteen pounds of pork. 

 His pork cost him five and one-half cents per pound. 



In the first case the corn cost 11, the oats fifty-five cents 

 per bushel ; in the second, the corn cost $1.08, the oats seventy 

 cents per bushel. This makes the advantage still more decided 

 on the side of the pigs. 



Unless we have a warm piggery, the waste of winter feeding 

 is a large item — in too many cases a dead loss. A shivering 

 pig kept on slops through the winter, must necessarily open the 

 spring with an impaired constitution ; and with a poorly devel- 

 oped frame for laying on fat. And it may as well be said in 

 this connection, that the success of any system of feeding and 

 fattening will depend essentially on warm, dry, sunny quarters. 



But with the dairy farmer, the manure profit is equally 

 important as the money profit. In order to realize the most 

 from his skimmed milk, of which he has the greatest abundance 

 in spring and early summer, he must have stock pigs, of from 

 six to eight months old : otherwise he defeats his main purpose. 

 His only alternative is, to keep the requisite number of breed- 

 ing sows, and depend on the extra number of small pigs to 

 consume his milk ; and take the risk of finding a market for 

 such surplus as he does not wish to keep over. With warm 

 snug quarters, store pigs may be carried through the cold 

 weather at a reasonable cost ; and by providing plenty of sods 

 in the fall, or throwing in horse manure, &c., he will find a big 

 pile of rich compost ready for his spring planting. What he 

 feeds them in the cold weather will thus return to him in season 

 to finish their fattening in November. And the more corn fed^ 

 the more corn returned at harvest. The means expended 

 furnish the means of increasing the productiveness, and of 

 course, the real value of the farm. It is money at compound 

 interest. 



