1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



605 



gets is obtained by more or less quarrellint?, and 

 adds a distaste to their olher food; besides it is a 

 great consideration to get them ofl' tlie sow as 

 soon as possible. Eight or ten great pii^s tuirtJincr 

 at her breast for two or tliree months ishard to bft 

 borne, and frequently very pernicious to her teats. 

 In weaning, all but one should be taken off, put 

 the dam on short allowance, and in two days 

 take the remaining pig away, allowing it at first to 

 draw the breast twice a day, and then diminish 

 till once in two or three days during a week, then 

 turn the sow out to grass, and leave'off entirely and 

 conmienee gradually putting her into condition a- 

 gain. The Berkshires are great milkers, and must 

 be well attended to at weaning time, or their breast 

 will fill, become caked and swollen, and finally 

 ulcerate and be the cause sometimes of the death 

 of the sow. 



Two litters are allowed per annum, and prefer- 

 ence for firrowing, in this climate, is given to the 

 months of April and September. Farther south 

 later and earlier will answer. A pig when first 

 dropped is a very tender animal, and if the weather 

 be too cold it will perish; the dam also is likely to 

 become ravenous and devour her ofl'spring, or re- 

 fuse to nurse it. Sows are better to be°always 

 separate; but with the owner of a large herd, tliis 

 is inconvenient, and adds greatly to th^e expense of 

 keeping ihem. One must do as well as he can 

 in this particular, but when nearly of a size and 

 tolerably peaceable, four may be kept tocretherin a 

 pen, and a dozen or so in a pasture. The breed 

 greaily decides on this point. For instance, I 

 could keep a hundred Chinese together without 

 quarrelling or accidents, they are so good nalured 

 and quiet; but then again they huddle too close, 

 and so want as much separating as others. These 

 being smaller and of quicker maturity than the 

 Berkshires, the sows may come in at a year old; 

 and when full grown, great care must be taken 

 about overfeedmg and keeping them too confined. 

 The bellies of this stock are now nearly dragfrinu- 

 on the ground, though they have had no'othe^ 

 food since the forepart of May, than what they 

 have found in a poor grass pasture. Those I have 

 eold west get so fat on shack by November as to 

 be hardly able to waddle, and make the nicest of 

 pork without farther feeding. In England they 

 are called par excellence, the "gentlenian's hoir,'' 

 and though their pork inclines rather too much to 

 fat, still it is so sweet and delicate that it is more 

 generally preferred by those who can afford it. 

 The crosses of these wiih the Berkshire are in 

 great repute at the Smi-.hfield market, and I will 

 add that what little has been thus made here takes 

 the preference. The hams well boiled and eaten 

 cold, seem absolutely to dissolve in the mouth 

 without mastication. The average weight of my 

 improved Chinese may be at eighteen months old 

 from 200 to 250 pounds. Occasionally they will 

 go older to 300 and even 400 pounds, but 

 this IS very rare. Though small, they have pro- 

 ved to the other races of hogs, what the Arabians 

 nave to horses, the foundation of all improvement. 



The reader will have surmised from my ob- 

 servations on breeding, at least some of the causes 

 why the Berkshires with you have not came up 

 to the full sizes so often stated by the eastern 

 breeder that they arrive at; but lest he may not 

 yet thoroughly understand the demerits of the case, 

 injustice to both seller and purchaser, I shall pro- 



ceed to briefly state them. Suppose then that 

 we start wiih a pair of Berkshires from unexcep- 

 tionable slock, the produce may deteriorate in size, 

 either fi'uii) too great allinily in blood ofihe parents 

 breeding too young, too old, or too much. Keep- 

 ing too fat, (which by the way is not often the 

 case,) too |)oor, or too confined ; from diseases 

 known and unknown, from runts that will oc- 

 casionally be dropped, from scantiness and im- 

 propiiety of food lo the pisr, and occasionally, over 

 which no one has control and that check its growth, 

 from sufferings throun;h the inattention of the 

 transporters to its place of desiinaiion, and finally 

 from a general deterioration in nature. Really 

 good animals that are every way ri^ht, are rare, 

 very rare indeed, and when at last obtained, can- 

 not be too highly cherished. That there may be 

 an increased effort to produce them throughout 

 the United States, is the ardent desire of, 

 Your obedient servant, A. B. Allen. 



A PATTERN FARMING TOWNSHIP. 



From tlie Farmers' Montlily Visiter. 



Until withm a few days the editor had never vis- 

 ited the town of Rye in the county of Rockingham, 

 This town is situated next southwest from Ports- 

 mouth, stretching on the sea-shore six miles, and 

 is of an average width of two miles, being one 

 third the size of a common six miles square town- 

 ship. A considerable portion of iis superficies is 

 the sand beach of the sea. Its soil now in culti- 

 vation was originally hard beyond that of the rocky 

 soil of the interior, with a pan approaching nea"r 

 the surface like the face of the rock itself, or else 

 it was swamp and morass. Thirty and forty years 

 ago the inhabitants pursued fishing as their princi- 

 pal occupation; and the larger portion of them 

 were poor: it is also said that many of the fisher- 

 men, being intemperate, left their families almost 

 in a state of destitution. The change that has 

 since gone over them is wonderful. There is not 

 now jirobably in the slate a more industrious and 

 moral community than the twelve to fifteen hun-' 

 dred inhabitants of Rye; and although there is 

 no community of farmers in the country more fru- 

 gal and economical, scarcely an individual among 

 them being willing to part witha fourpence-ha'pen^ 

 iiy without the assurance that it will bring back a 

 nine- pence, yet the examples of generous charity 

 amonrt them are such as are worthy of imitation 

 from those who part wilh their money with much 

 less reluctance. Most of the owners of fiirms Vvilh 

 their sons do the work upon the fiirms: if one of 

 them is taken sick and unable to do his work in a 

 busy season, enough of his neighbors leave their 

 own work for one or more days lo assist him, and 

 his haying or his hoeing is performed at the pro- 

 per season, "without money and without price. 



The superabundant rocks in tliis liille township 

 have lor the most part been cotiverted into excellent 

 permanent walls, [lartitionintr out the grounds into 

 convenient fields of from two to twelve acres. We 

 met in the town the three selectmen or "fathers of 

 the town," who were in session to close up the 

 business of the year. These gentlemen were 

 a true specimen of the hard hands and intelligent, 

 honest faces that are characteristic of the tillers 

 of our soil. With them, and the excellent friend 



