ICAN HERD- 



DE VOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry. — Likbio. 



Vol. XII — No. 5.] 



12th mo. (December) 15th, 1847. 



[Whole No. 155. 



POBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY J O S I A H T A T U M, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — Forconditionssee last page. 



For the Fanners' Cabinet. 

 House-feeding Sheep. 



Mr. Editor, — Your account of the stall- 

 feeding establishment for sheep, at Svvnin- 

 ston,* in the Isle of Wight, is interesting, 

 very. I love to see gentlemen amuse them- 

 selves in this way, and Sir Richard Simeon 

 is a man who knows how such things ought 

 to be done. 



It is 'now about tvventy-five years ago that 

 I visited him at his princely estate of St. 

 Johns, near Ryle, for the purpose of examin- 

 ing his piggery, well deserving its name of 

 " Hog Palace," which covered a very large 

 space of ground, divided into apartments for 

 every purpose, and where I saw several hun- 

 dred hogs, young and old, all of the white 

 breed, which were kept as clean as the 

 horses in his stables, feeding on the fat of 

 the land; for the milk of a dairy of more 

 than fifty Short-horned cows, valued at many 

 hundred dollars per head, after yielding 



* See current volume of Cabinet, p. 94. 



Cab.— Vol. XII.— No. 5. 



cream for butter, was devoted to their use, 

 being poured into large cisterns sunk in the 

 ground, to which barley meal was added ; 

 this being stirred with a large spatula, soon 

 began to ferment, when it was fed to the 

 hogs; while other cisterns were preparing 

 for their use in the same way. And this, 

 being fed to the whole herd from their 

 youth up, no wonder that manj' of them 

 could not rise without help, nor see cut of 

 their eyes for fit. Here, any man wanting 

 to purchase a fat hog, went and selected one 

 for himself, which was killed and dressed 

 the next day, by the slaughterman of the 

 establishment, ready for delivery; with the 

 fat, liver, &c., belonging to it, "all in apple- 

 pie order," as the neighbours used to term 

 it. I remember, the price, at the time I 

 speak of, was Sd. or 16 cents per lb., but it 

 was conceded by all, that every pound so 

 fatted, had cost a third more than it sold for. 

 Sir Richard was particularly choice of this 

 breed of hogs; I was informed, that he had 

 'just sent a sow by horse and cart, a distance 

 !of one hundred and twenty miles, to obtain 

 a cross with a premium boar, in possession 

 ;of anotlier Lossing, at that distance from 

 his establishment. But all would not do, 

 there, any more than here, for the breed run 

 |out, and dwindled down into a race of pig- 

 mies, and then the establishment went out. 

 1 Sir Richard was also famous for raising 

 green crops for his stock of cattle and horses, 

 going in for a very large growth of roots. 

 'At the time of my visit, I saw, packed with 



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