32 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 1 



scribes, and heard with pleasure the explanations 

 of its intelligent owner, upon the different parts of 

 his plan. And from our desire to profit by his ex- 

 perience, we subsequently requested him to give 

 us a written description of his piggery, and the 

 management thereof, which he promptly furnish- 

 ed, in a letter that invited us to pursue our inqui- 

 ries; and these procured for us the more ample de- 

 tails contained in his second letter. It was our 

 wish to publish these communications soon after 

 they were received, but we could not obtain his 

 express permission to make that use of them; 

 therelbre, we have withheld his letters from the 

 press until the present moment when we are as- 

 sured that the cause of his reluctance has ceased 

 to exist; and that his plan may now be made 

 public, without any prejudice to his interests, or vi- 

 olation of his wishes. This system challenges 

 our admiration, and we cheerfully render it to his 

 head and heart. How iew of us take equal care 

 of superior animals! And there are not many 

 who carry equal method into their most important 

 avocations — errors, which may justly bo ascribed 

 10 defective education. It is easy to perceive in 

 every part of Mr. Ingersoll's proceeding, that con- 

 fidence which merchants feel in the employment 

 of capital at some risk, and heavy charses, for the 

 production of a probable and fair, althouijh remote 

 profit, through a definite channel. With such 

 hopes and calculations, education had made him 

 familiar, whilst it gave him habits of critical inves- 

 tigation that must ever secure to their possessor 

 eventual success in any occupation to which he 

 may devote himself^ As a fjirmer, we perceive 

 that he has derived a handsome livelihood from 

 the cultivation of a few acres of land, and the em- 

 ployment of a small capital, in connexion there- 

 with ; whilst there are many proprietors of prince- 

 ly estates, who can scarcely contrive to banish 

 want from their domains. We have pointed to the 

 chief cause of such painful deficiencies; it remains 

 for parents to diminish their number in future times, 

 by taking present and suitable means to qualify 

 their children to pursue their respective occupa- 

 tions with benefit to their families, and advantage 

 to society. And whilst we are zealously laboring 

 to amass property for our offspring, let us not be 

 unmindful of 1 heir intellectual treasures, but re- 

 member always that the improvementof these can 

 alone teach them how to enjoy and augment the 

 wealth that we may give.] — Ed. Am. Far. 



Brookline, Oct. SOth, 1821. 



Dear Sir, — (have, this evening, received your 

 favor, dated 1st inst., inclosing some valuable seeds, 

 and two numbers of your publication, for which I 

 beg you to accept my acknowledgments. 1 should 

 feel mortified that your interesting journal should 

 have been published near three years, without my 

 availing myself of its information. The fact is, I 

 have been a subscriber through our mutual friends 

 Messrs. Wells and Lilley, from the beginning. 



I am happy to hear of the safe arrival of the 

 pigs, and more gratified that you are pleased with 

 them. It will irive me great pleasure to send the 

 boars you wish in the spring; and they shall, as 

 you desire, be of different parentage from those 

 you already have. I am fully satisfied, Irom re- 

 peated trials, that a fine race of animals canno! 

 be kept up by breeding in and inj and I have both 

 in my sheep and swine, two distinct families, which 



are crossed with each other. And except to supply 

 the number of each kind I want to breed from, the 

 individuals of the same family are never allowed lo 

 come together. By attention and strict adherence 

 to this plan of crossing, where both kinds are good, 

 I have a fine healthy stock. The animals are im- 

 proved, both in size and symmetry, and their dis- 

 position to get very fat, at an early age, has been 

 increased. At twelve months old, the pigs you 

 saw in my various pens, averaged 280 lbs.; and 

 many of them exceeded 300 lbs. each. This weight 

 as they were fed almost entirely upon vegetables, 

 was very satisfactory. A larger race has been 

 often recommended to me by my neighbors. But 

 a large race would not only require more food, but 

 it must also be of much richer, and of more expen- 

 sive quality. Boiled cabbages, turnips, and other 

 vegetables, whose acreable produce is large, and 

 which constitute the principal sustenance of my own 

 breed, would make but poor returns when given to 

 a larger framed animal. My establishment con- 

 sists of twelve breeding sows and two boars, that 

 are kept as long as they bring fine litters of pigs; 

 failing in this, they are fatted, and their places sup- 

 plied by others of one year old, before they are put 

 to the male. The sows are put with the boars the 

 1st of April, and the 1st of October, and farrow 

 twice a year. Their inside pens are eight feet by 

 five, and their outside pens are three by four feet. 

 About the time they are expected to bring forth, 

 the styes are littered with straw cut into chaff^ very 

 fine, that the little pigs may be dry and warm, 

 without being entangled with long straw, and thus 

 destroyed. The litters are always regulated so as 

 to leave not more than eight pigs to any one sow, 

 either by changing their mothers, when necessary, 

 soon after their birth, or by removing supernume- 

 raries. I have always found a family of eight pigs 

 at a month old, worth more than one of twelve ; 

 their growth being so much greater. From each 

 outside pen the pigs have access through a small 

 hole, to a common yard, which is always kept well 

 littered ; in which they play; and where dry corn 

 is placed in shallow troughs to induce them 

 to eat as early as possible. Each party knows 

 their mother, and they find their respective pens 

 without difficulty. These pigs are aZwaj/s wean- 

 ed the 1st of October, at six or eight weeks old, 

 that the sows may be again in the way of their 

 duty, and my system progress. From these pigs 

 1 select seventy-twO; and dispose of the rest. They 

 are put into twelve pens, containing six each, and 

 are fed with the best food my swill trougli affords, 

 six times per day, for the first month, and three 

 times per day afterwards. The inside pens are 

 six feet square, and the outside four feet by six, 

 both planked, with a quick descent for the dirt, &c. 

 to be carried ofi'. Much, indeed everything, de- 

 pends upon their sleeping dry and warm, and 

 being well littered, and kept perfectly clean. 

 Fn these pens they remain six months, or until 

 October and April, when they are all transferred 

 to the fatting pens, and their places supplied by 

 the newly weaned pigs. The fatting pens are 

 planked — there is a cellar under them, and each pig 

 is allowed an area of about twelve square feet to 

 live in ; for these there are no outside pens. The 

 fatting pens are cleaned out every morning, and 

 tt-esh filter given. For three months the pigs in 

 them are fed from the swill trough as store pigs; 

 at the end of which time, say January and July, 



