206 HAREIS OX THE PIG. 



To keep up and improve the quality of the stock, it is 

 absolutely essential to " weed out " all that show any ten- 

 dency to deterioration ; and on this account it is desirable 

 to have a good-sized herd to select the breeding stock 

 from. We must have at least two boars of each breed ; 

 and where two or three different breeds are kept, this is 

 no slight expense. We would, therefore, earnestly recom- 

 mend breeders to confine themselves to one breed. 



THE BOAB. 



A young boar must never be stinted in food. Until he 

 is a year old, he should be kept growing as rapidly as 

 possible, consistent with health and vigor. But at the 

 same time, he must not be allowed to get too fat. We 

 would let him have all the food he will eat. If he gets 

 too fat, reduce the quality, but not the quantity, of the 

 food. It is here that judgment and experience are par- 

 ticularly important. A person who has kept none but 

 common pigs is very apt to think that his thorough-bred 

 boar is getting too fat. The roundness and symmetry of 

 the body, with the comparatively small growth of bone 

 and oifal parts, leads him to suppose that the pig is not 

 growing fast enough.* This is particularly the case with 

 the small breeds. He thinks they are fattening inside, 

 but are not growing ; and, in order to make him grow, or, 

 at all events, to prevent him from getting too fat, he turns 

 him to a straw stack, or shuts him up in a pen, and feeds 

 him nothing but dish-water and a few potato parings. 

 Nothing can be more unwise. If the pig is getting too 

 fat, which, in the case assumed, is not probable, the bet- 

 ter plan is to turn, him into a clover lot, or into a stubble 

 field. What he needs is exercise and abundance of plain 

 food. If it is winter, let him have less concentrated food, 

 but give him all of it that he will eat up clean, twice a 

 day. A few boiled potatoes and coarse bran, or bran 



