28 ON SWINE. 



hard like good pork. The legs and shoulders are very weighty, as 

 are also the spare-ribs and loins. 



Your Committee are not sufficiently acquainted with the diflferent 

 varieties of swine to distinguish them by their names and qualities, 

 so as to give a preference to any particular breed. It is indeed diffi- 

 cult to know what to call the best breed, as they are so crossed and 

 intermixed, as they are to be seen among us. In selecting swine, 

 we should not take a pig with a large head, large ears, large legs 

 and a large tail ; but if we wanted a pig of which to make a hog, we 

 should endeavor to procure one that had a short head and small ears, 

 fine legs, and a slim tail set upon a slope rump. We should then 

 have pork and not bones. At slaughtering, the latter pig, which to 

 appearance would weigh 300 lbs., Avill be found to weigh 350 or 

 more ; the former will apparently weigh 400 lbs., but when brought 

 to the balance fce will be found wanting. 



There is unquestionably greater risk attending the breeding of 

 swine than any other farm stock. But there are some rules, which, 

 though perhaps generally knoAvn, if more rigidly observed, would di- 

 minish the chances of a loss of pigs at littering. The sow should be 

 placed by herself in a pen, sparingly supplied with fine litter, some 

 weeks before confinement, so that she may become accustomed to her 

 abode. On the eve of that event she should not be disturbed, nor 

 indeed until after she has begun to suckle all of her new-born family. 

 She should be fed lightly for some days after having littered, to allay 

 inflaraation and to promote a healthy tone of body and appetite. 

 The quantity and quality of food may be increased, as the demands 

 of her stomach, which will soon be great, increase. But should her 

 appetite be poor — should she be moping or enfeebled by littering, 

 let her out of the pen with her young ones, to follow her own bent; 

 to walk, or root, or lie down, when and where she pleases ; only 

 housing her at night. 



In a fortnight from their birth, pigs will thrive all the better for 

 being allowed to run out, at liberty, from the pen, and, as soon as 

 they may, to eat grass. Crumbs and such other food as they can find. 

 In a few weeks more they will readily eat corn, which should be fur- 

 nished them in small quantities as soon as they will eat it. They 

 thus learn early the art of eating, and depend partly on it as well as 

 on sucking, for support. The change, therefore, on weaning is not a 

 violent, but an easy one. They are thus preserved from that weaken- 



