OF FARM CATTLE. 129 



land which weighed 850 pounds. Sonnini, his com- 

 mentator, mentions another, killed in France, which 

 weighed 990 pounds ; and Mr. Jefferson, a third, kill- 

 ed in Virginia, which reached the enormous weight 

 of 1200 pounds.* 



The value of the hog is increased by their natural 

 fecundity, which much exceeds that of any other spe- 

 cies of domestic animal. This subject was thought 

 worthy the pen of Marshal Vauban, who left behind 

 him a manuscript calculation of the offspring of a 

 single sow. The paper was read in the Institute of 

 France some years ago, was heard with great inter- 

 est, and gave an enormous result, but not sufficient- 

 ly recollected to be stated here. 



As, from the constitution of the human mind, 

 there have been skeptics on all subjects, little and 

 great, so on this we find some doubting whether the 

 hog did not, from his insatiable appetite, consume 

 more during his life than the amount of his value at 

 the time of his death. These doubts could not fail 

 to engage calculating men in ascertaining this point. 

 Their experiments show a profit of eight dollars on 

 every hog reared and fed to the age of two years, 

 by persons having no farms, and obliged to buy ev- 

 ery article going to their nourishment. How much 

 greater, then, the profits of those who have the 

 means of subsisting them on grasses and roots, 

 which cost only the labour of raising ? 



To these specific remarks upon different animals, 

 we now proceed to add a few observations on the 

 breeding of cattle, and a brief view of the general 

 principles on which the fattening of such of them as 

 enter into the subsistence of man more peculiarly 

 depends. And, 



1st. Of the breeding of Cattle. 



It rarely happens that the breeders of cattle are 

 the fatteners of them. The first of these employ- 



* Notes on Virginia. 



