40 HARMS ON THE PIG. 



During the summer, however, they had nothing but the 

 wash and milk from the house, and the run of a good 

 clover pasture. On this, the whole litter kept quite fat, 

 and with the exception of this one sow, that proved to be 

 with pig, were sold the first of October to the butcher, 

 without having had any corn or grain of any kind for sev- 

 eral months. The sow alluded to above, out of this litter, 

 received the same treatment ; but in a week or ten days 

 after she pigged, we commenced to fatten her, and never did 

 sucking pigs thrive better ; and when they were weaned, 

 the sow was actually fat, and in a month afterwards was 

 very fat. 



Now there is nothing remarkable in all this. We have 

 had pigs do very much better, because better fed. But 

 it certainly enabled us to silence the sneers of a prejudiced 

 farmer against liberal feeding and thorough-bred pigs. 



Another case deserves to be mentioned, showing the 

 importance of liberal feeding in the case of well-bred pigs. 

 One of our neighbors, a city man, who believed in good 

 breeds and good feeding, had a common sow of good size 

 and pretty fair form. He put her to a thorough-bred 

 Prince Albert Suffolk boar, and had a litter of capital pigs. 

 He afterwards put her to a thorough-bred Essex boar. But 

 by this time, he got tired of farming, and at the sale, this 

 sow was purchased by another neighbor who half starved 

 her. She had a fair litter of pigs sometime in October. 

 During the winter they had a little wash from the house 

 and what they could pick up in a yard where cows receiv- 

 ed little or nothing but straw. The next summer they 

 had the run of the roadside, with yokes around their necks 

 to keep them out of mischief. A meaner and more ut- 

 terly forlorn lot of pigs it has never been our lot to see. 

 And this good man attributed his ill-luck to our thorough- 

 bred boar ! 



In one sense he was right. The sow had been accus- 

 tomed to liberal feeding, and the boar was descended from 



