PEAS, AND PORK -MAKING. 



In the great corn-growing districts of the western States, corn is doubtless the best food 

 that can be raised for fatting hogs, and that system of feeding best that is attended 

 with least labor and outlay. Grinding or cooking food is of very questionable economy 

 where corn is worth oidy ten to twenty-fivo cents per bushel, yet it is in such places that 

 pork-raising is a directly profitable business ; that is to say, it pays much better to con- 

 vert corn into pork than fo sell it off the farm, without reckoning the value of the manure 

 in the calculation. This arises from the fact that the relative difference between the 

 price of corn and pork is there much more in favor of the pork than in this and the 

 older settled States, owing to the cheap rate, compared with value, at which pork can 

 be sent to the eastern cities. In feeding hogs, however, with corn at fifty cents per 

 bushel and pork at four dollars per hundred, we have to be careful and economical of 

 corn rather than of labor, to make it pay. Grinding and cooking, or soaking in water for 

 twelve hours or so, will well repay the extra labor and expense. It is, however, doubt- 

 ful whether, taking no account of the manure, it is profitable to feed corn to hogs at 

 fifty cents per bushel, and pork at four cents per pound. Many good farmers think it 

 will not, and keep only sufficient hogs to eat up what would otherwise be wasted, 

 making their pork in summer on sour milk, and finishing oflf with apples, small potatoes, 

 pumpkins, and " nubbins," or immature corn, in addition to the milk. In this way the 

 actual cost of pork-making is little more than the labor, and the profit considerable. 

 But this system is necessarily limited, and what is required is a profitable plan for 

 feeding hogs, <fec., on a large scale, it being otherwise impossible to maintain our farms 

 iu a high degree of fertility ; that is, we can not export a greater part of the hay, corn, 

 &e., from a farm, and keep it in good heart — without, indeed, we purchase instead of 

 making manure, which in many localities is probably the cheapest way. But, as a gen- 

 eral rule, our farmers must keep more stock, make more pork, mutton, and beef, on 

 their farms, before the maximum produce of the soil can be obtained, or rationally 

 expected. 



In a judicious system of farm management, we must judge of the economy of 

 growing a certain crop, or feeding with a particular kind of produce, by its effects on 

 other crops of equal or greater importance. Thus, on wheat-growing farms, we have to 

 look not merely to the profit of growing one crop, or feeding, &c., alone, but also to the 

 effect it has on the ultimate object — the production of wheat. And that system of 

 farming is best which yields the most profit as a tvhole, even though actual loss is sus- 

 tained by growing and feeding out some of the crops, &c. In fatting hogs, therefore, 

 we have to consider what will be the best method to adopt, taking into account the 

 expense at which the food used can be grown, the effect of its growth on the soil, the 

 amount of pork it will produce, and the value of the manure made by its consumption. 

 To determine these points satisfactorily, requires more knowledge than we at present 

 possess ; and a series of experiments are needed before we shall be much wiser. It is 

 really known, however, that' the principal object on a wheat farm should be the accuinu- 

 lation of atninotiia ; for it is impossible in any other way to increase the wdieat crop, 

 which on most soils increases or diminishes as ammonia is supplied or withheld iis 

 manure. The wheat plant not only consumes, but actually destroys ammonia, during 

 its grow^th. Corn, barley, and oats, are supposed, from good reasons, to do the same; 

 and therefore none of them is the crop which we should grow for the purpose of feeding 

 out on the farm, with the object of obtaining ammonia for the wheat crop. But peas 

 do not destroy ammonia to any extent in their growth, and contain four times as much 

 nitrogen (the essential element of ammonia) as corn ; so that not only is a crop of peas 

 produced without much destruction of ammonia, but the manure made by hogs eating 

 them would contain four times as much ammonia as thait^ade by those eating corn. 



