30 ON SWINE. 



attendance. With tln-co meals a day in summer, and two in winter, 

 we believe our swine are very well content. 



Judgment should be exercised in feeding ; for this some head-work 

 as well as hand-work is needed. If the previous meal or a portion 

 of it be left in the trough, it is evident either that the swine have 

 been over-fed, or have lost their appetite. In cither case, diminish 

 or withhold entirely their food at the next regular meal-time, and 

 perhaps the next, and the next, until the quantity furnished at any 

 one time be completely consumed. A clean trough is a great resto- 

 rative for a lost appetite. A hog can eat without a table-cloth, but 

 he likes a clean plate, — or what is the same thing to him, a clean 

 trough, — as well as he who feeds him. Swine should not be surfeit- 

 ed, if you would have them eat Avith a keen appetite. Gorge them 

 to-day, and to-morrow they are shy and dainty feeders. The opera- 

 tion of fattening is a gradual one, but it is also the quickest and 

 cheapest performed when the fullest amount of material needful to it, 

 is furnished. If it be true, as some physiologists assert, that plants 

 live mainly on air, it is very certain that swine cannot thrive on any such 

 food. They need good food and a plenty of it. They cannot be 

 cheated out of it, either by avarice or philosophy, without being 

 cheated yourself. 



In reference to the often disputed question, whether pork-raising is 

 a profitable part of our farm pursuits, much, of course, depends on 

 the relative price of pork and of the food necessary to make it. At 

 the present price of corn and pork, it is contended by some that all 

 the profit in keeping hogs, is in the manure made by them. This 

 may be true if all the food is to be bought for them, but there is a large 

 amount of valuable materials on almost every farm, such as skim-milk, 

 small potatoes, wind-fall and other unsalable apples, unsound and small 

 cars of corn, which, we believe, can be applied in no way more pro- 

 fitable than in the feeding of swine. And as many such articles go 

 to make a given amount of pork, it is difficult to arrive at the exact 

 cost of fattening it. But if you have to buy all the food for your 

 swine, corn is probably the most profitable ; and it is believed by 

 your Committee, that pork can be raised for six cents a pound on 

 corn when it is sixty cents per bushel, at seven cents a pound when 

 it is seventy cents per bushel, and so on, either way, one cent a 

 pound on the pork, and ten cents a bushel on the corn. And this 

 conclusion is drawn from the fact that a good thrifty hog that will 



