ENGLISH EXPERIENCE IN PIG FEEDING. 185 



than two or three weeks feeding on meal. It was time 

 enough to begin to feed pigs for bacon at eight or ten 

 months old. Good breeding sows he allowed to have 

 two farrows, and sometimes three, but never more, and 

 then fed them for bacon, supplying their places with 

 young sows. 



" In selling store pigs, he charged a certain price per 

 pound, and allowed the purchaser to pick the pigs from 

 the field, which plan always gave satisfaction, and secured 

 a return of custom. It was desirable, in breeding ani- 

 mals, to have as little bone as possible, in proportion to 

 flesh. He had tested a cut sow of his breed, which 

 weighed 640 Ibs., and the whole of the bones, after the 

 flesh had been boiled from them, weighed only 21 Ibs., so 

 that for every pound of bones there was 32 Ibs. of meat. 

 His pigs made 1 Ib. of flesh for every 4 Ibs. of good In- 

 dian corn, barley or pea-meal ; as a rule, he preferred the 

 Indian corn. He considered it always to be more profita- 

 ble to feed good food than upon that of inferior quality. 

 As a rule, pigs would thrive better for being turned out 

 once a day, except in wet weather, and would also be 

 healthier, more active, and have a cleaner appearance. 

 One of the greatest pleasures his breeding afforded him 

 was to see the number of laboring men who came to buy 

 from him, and he hoped to live to see the day when every 

 laboring man would have a good pig in his sty." 



Mr. Baldwin's experience is the more valuable, as he 

 seems to keep pigs to sell to the butcher, or to those who 

 intended to fatten them. His success is not due to selling 

 thorough-bred pigs at high prices for breeding purposes. 



A Yorkshire farmer, who occupies 280 acres of land, 

 half under plow, and half in grass, and who raises and 

 feeds a large number of the small Yorkshire and Cum- 

 berland breed of pigs, writes Mr. Sidney as follows: 



" I am a farmer, and I keep pigs for profit, and I have 

 no stock that pays like them ; but I have found a surpris- 



