ENGLISH EXPERIENCE IN PIG FEEDING. 180 



barley, and buy Indian com and bran. Indian corn is 

 about the same price as barley, but sixty, instead of fifty- 

 two pounds to the bushel. A bushel of barley-meal is 

 generally supposed to add 10 Ibs. to the weight of a pig. 

 I have found, in my latest experiments, that a bushel of 

 Indian corn produced an increased weight to a pig of 

 15 Ibs. 



" Indian corn," says Dr. Yoelcker, " is richer in fat- 

 forming matters than almost any other description of 

 food. The ready-made fat in corn amounts to from five 

 and a half to six per cent. But animals should not be 

 fed exclusively on Indian corn, because the flesh-forming 

 matter in it is small. Bean-meal [or pea-meal] supplies 

 the deficiency. Five pounds of Indian corn, ground or 

 crushed, to one pound of bean-meal [or pea-meal], is a 

 mixture which contains the proportions of flesh-forming 

 and fattening matters nicely balanced." 



Another Yorkshire farmer writes : "We are now (1860) 

 fattening pigs on wheat costing $1.20 per bushel [in gold,], 

 which, as large bacon pigs are selling at 12 cents per 

 pound, leaves a handsome profit for fattening, even at the 

 present high price of stores. 



" But," he adds, " the farmer who is wise, will keep 

 both these profits in his own hands. He will rear his own 

 stores, and grind up his own grain for feeding them. If 

 he wants pigs to pay, he does not starve them for twelve 

 to eighteen months, leaving them to roam about the fields, 

 consuming as much food among twenty as would feed 

 thirty, rooting and turning over a fold-yard dung heap ; 

 but he finds, with the corn, that it will cost him in money 

 half its feeding value, and gets the manure into the 

 bargain. 



u A well managed pig-feeding establishment, near any 

 great town, ought to pay in times of low-priced grain. 

 Unlike beef and mutton, every inch of a pig is in demand, 

 and the oiFals are sold at good prices as dainty bits." 



