35S 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 6 



combination, without the labor of carting from and 

 to the field. 



The limits of my paper will not permit me to 

 say on this subject, as much as I think its import- 

 ance deserves, and I must therefore make its con- 

 tinuance the subject of another letter to you. 



A PLANTER. 



Alabama, flag. 4, 1835. 



ON THE CAUSES OF DISEASE IN HOGS. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



In the first No. of Vol. II. I find from the Gen- 

 esee Farmer, a i'ew remarks on the diseases of 

 hogs, with a request lor information on a particu- 

 lar case stated. 



The hogs alluded to were kept in a large frame 

 pen, with a plank Moor, and led on "bran, shorts, 

 and short midlings." Three hundred had been pen- 

 ned, and fifty died during the winter. A neigh- 

 bor gave a drove seven hundred dollars worth of 

 corn, and the same disease made a similar havoc. 

 On opening them a great many slim worms were 

 discovered, about one inch long, in the leaf, and 

 about the back bone. 



On the same page, one of your correspondents 

 states his hogs being subject to lice, &c, and re- 

 quests a remedy. I believe it is pretty well set- 

 tled that no animal in its natural slate, is less the 

 subject of disease than the hog. But as soon as 

 we get him fairly under our jurisdiction, he be- 

 comes liable to many — and it is not a little aston- 

 ishing, on cool reflection, that we frequently begin 

 the management, and actually the improvement 

 of the whole animal world, by a vigorous attempt 

 to counteract the laws of nature; and one of the 

 first and most certain consequences of our course 

 is, to generate disease as foreign to the animal as 

 our course of management and improvement is to 

 those laws which nature wisely and kindly coupled 

 with a strong, instinctive capacity. Amongst 

 the last we find distinctly marked, a disposition to 

 find and use a great variety of tbod. Our know- 

 ledge of the substances used by the animal world 

 in this way, and hunted for by them with much 

 anxiety at times, teaches us that in their opera- 

 tion they are medicinal, and that the cravings of 

 animal nature must call for them, more to counter- 

 act and cure a predisposition to disease, or disease 

 itself, than for yielding nutrition. Would not 

 common sense dictate, on reflection, that in our 

 management of any animal the same rule ought 

 to be observed, if we wish to produce the animal 

 perfect, and to preserve animal health? 



Among animals which we appropriate to our 

 use, as food, there cannot be found one which af- 

 fords a more singular instance how wonderfully 

 nature yields to our extravagant deviation from its 

 laws, than the hog. The animal that roams over 

 the surface of the earth, and eats of almost every 

 vegetable and animal substance within its reach, 

 is put into a small pen, deprived of locomotion, 

 and restricted to dry corn, and water. If we ad- 

 mit that a part of that which they hunt for, and 

 consume, if not in duresse, is in its operation ne- 

 cessary for the preservation of animal health, 

 ought we to be astonished at the appearance of 

 disease in our hog in limbo? I think not — but ra- 

 ther, that disease is not uniformly the issue — and 



in fact, I fear, that we frequently mistake a mass 

 of obesity in disease, for sound pure pork. The 

 notorious different operations on the stomach, of 

 wild animal oils, generated in nature's mode, and 

 those produced by artificial means, is stubbornly 

 in point. No animal comes nearer the hog than 

 the bear. You may drink the oil of the last, 

 without the slightest danger of producing any 

 aversion of the stomach. 



Were you to make a pen capable of containing 

 any given number of hogs, placing in one end, an 

 apartment, with not only a plank floor, but ele- 

 gantly planed and jointed, and covered — and in the 

 other a shed, covering a floor of dry earth, with a 

 sufficient bed of dry leaves, and take, a hog from 

 all the different species on the globe, I think with- 

 out hazarding, we might quickly determine which 

 end they would prefer. Among all the different 

 lied- for rest constructed by this animal, I feel as- 

 sured they were never known to drag together a 

 number oi' planks. This preparation for their rest, 

 is not at all consonant with their notorious, natu- 

 ral disposition. But in the bed of dry leaves they 

 delight. Nor are they averse to having that bed 

 on a clean place of dry earth — especially if pro- 

 tected by a shelter. Had the gentleman before 

 mentioned, have thrown into the pen a quantity 

 of rotten wood, and a portion of charcoal, or oc- 

 casionally boiled the corn in strong ley, or added 

 a portion of copperas and brimstone, the issue, I 

 am assured, would have been extremely different. 

 As for lice, the brimstone would have put that out 

 of the question. 



The disease of those hogs is not unknown in 

 this section of the Union. Carelessness and arti- 

 ficial food, destroy many with it, but intelligent 

 hog raisers and fatteners avoid it, by the means 

 of simple preventives. 



Some years ago I found myself annually losing 

 hogs, with what they told me was the worm- 

 sometimes in the stomach, then in the kidney, and 

 lastly, when fattening in the back bone. 1 gave 

 my hogs dry corn, in a close pen, profusely. I 

 heard of an old Roanoke Virginian, who had em- 

 igrated to this state, who, it was stated, had ac- 

 quired uncommon practical knowledge of the 

 most successful mode of raisincr and fattening this 

 animal — and wishing to raise them in perfection, 

 I went to see the old gentleman, who had been at 

 it for forty odd years. The result of an evening's 

 conversation enabled me to drive the worm in 

 every shape and place, and save hundreds — and 

 raise the animal with actually half the common 

 expense, giving them a good growth — and as it 

 may be new, and perhaps useful to many of the 

 readers of the Register, I will transmit the detail 

 shortly. 



jflahama, July Wlh, 1835. 



AGRICOLA. 



ON RAISING AND FATTENING HOGS. 



To the Editor of the Farmer's Register. 



I promised to give you a detail of my mode of 

 raising and fattening the hog, as communicated 

 to me by an old Virginian, and a little improved, 

 I believe, by my own experience and practice. 

 My rotation of crops, and the circumstances that. 

 grow out of it, permit me to live up to an article 

 in my agricultural creed, to wit: that five hogs in- 



