No. 10. 



Distemper amongst Hogs. — Annealing of Iron. 



319 



making; and when it is churned "or come," 

 it is carried into the butter-cellar, and put 

 into a trough of wood with holes in the bot- 

 tom, where it is wrought a considerable time 

 to work out the whey ; after which it is salt- 

 ed, and lies several hours: it is then sprinkled 

 again with salt, wrought with the hands, and 

 after lying 2-1 hours, it is put into the casks, 

 without water being allowed to touch it dur- 

 ing the whole process. Butter-making is 

 finished about 8 o'clock, when the servants 

 go to breakfast; after which they wash and 

 clean all up, and go to assist in the garden 

 till noon, when they dine, and rest until 2 

 o'clock ; when they assume the same opera- 

 tions as in the morning. A book is kept in 

 which the name and number of every cow is 

 registered, with the quantity of milk she 

 yields, which is marked at different pe- 

 riods daring the summer; the calves of the 

 best being reserved for the increase of stock, 

 which at"present consists of 240 in milk, be- 

 sides those not giving milk ; 41 young heifers 

 in sheds, one and two years old ; and two 

 English bulls. — Quar. Jour. Ag. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Distemper amongst Hogs. 



Mr. Editor, — I am weary of hog doctor- 

 ing. For the last six or eight months there 

 has been such a mortality amongst the mem- 

 bers of my piggery, that has baffled all rny 

 skill and taxed my patience to bursting. 

 Yesterday the last of forty died, and I feel 

 now that I am relieved at least from my 

 fears, and know the worst of it ; but I am left 

 without the means of guessing what has been 

 the cause of such wholesale destruction: nei- 

 ther age or sex has been spared, and the hog 

 of a hundred pounds has shared the fate of 

 the pig of ten pounds, all having fallen alike 

 in the common lot. At first, I busied myself 

 in preparing nostrums, and drenclied, and 

 physicked, and bled, according to the pre- 

 scribed rules, but all that I ever gained was, 

 my labour for my pains, unless, indeed, it 

 was the satisfaction of believing that I some- 

 times shortened the sufferings of the poor 

 animals and saved their food — two things, 

 which, had I known the result, I could have 

 secured long ago, and with a saving of much 

 labour and expense, and trouble of mind. 



How is it, that no one has ever been able 

 to doctor a hog with even a distant prospect 

 of well-£rrounded success while reasoning 

 from analogy 1 He seems to be an animal 

 as incurable and stubborn in sickness, as he 

 is self-willed and headstrong in health — a fit 

 receptacle for the possession of some evil spi- 

 rit. Until the present time, I have found no 

 difficulty in rearing hogs, for my system is, 



to allow them to go much abroad ; and when 

 my neighbours have suffered loss, I have at- 

 tributed it to their confining them so closely 

 to the house: but on the same land, and ia 

 the same quarters, I have now experienced a 

 sickness which, although it might not be pro- 

 perly termed epidemic, has certainly been 

 endemic to a ruinous extent. I fear to renew 

 my stock, and am at a loss to know how to 

 proceed ; but I have determined to erect a 

 new piggery on the other side of my pre- 

 mises, believing it probable that the seeds of 

 disease might still linger in the sties and 

 troughs out of which they have fed during 

 their sickness. I wish that some of your nu- 

 merous readers could give me a clue to the 

 cause of the sweeping malady that has thus 

 afflicted my stock of hogs, and suggest some 

 mode of guarding against its occurrence in 

 future. 



I have been examining all the accounts 

 that have been published in our various peri- 

 odicals, and other works that have fallen into 

 my hands, and have often been disgusted with 

 the ridiculqus modes that have been recorded 

 as having p-oved effectual in the cure of the 

 diseases of swine ; and begin to think that 

 the very sl^rt account that appears in John 

 Lawrence'^ Treatise on Cattle, is about all 

 that can be paid upon the subject. He says: 

 " Did my slill in the diseases of hogs hold 

 proportion vith the losses I have suffered 

 therefrom, Ishould, I will venture to say, be 

 the most noable pig-doctor in Britain ; unfor- 

 tunate, howqver, in both ways, I know very 

 little of the hatter; for of all patients, these 

 are the very worst, and you may as well try 

 to doctor or clench a statue, as a pig ! The 

 old writers abd their followers give a long 

 list of the diskses of hogs, with prescriptions 

 for the cure; put as far as I am able to dis- 

 cover, they ki)w no more of the matter than 

 myself." Your subscriber, 



J. D. 



To the E«or of the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Anealing of Iron. 



Sir, — Manj persons know, and all may 

 become acqualted with the fact by experi- 

 ment, that who wire is heated to redness, 

 and immediatelr plunged into cold water, it 

 becomes so perictly annealed, as to be twined 

 around the finjir with the greatest ease, al- 

 though it mign be large in size. Now I 

 would ask, wMis it that the same process 

 which hardens ieel (the sudden plunging in 

 cold water whit hot) softens iron? Will 

 your scientific raders give me the informa- 

 tion, and oblige | 



A Fabmer-Mechanio. 



