730 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 12 



Free yourself^ as speedily as possible, from the 

 agricultural doiima, that whatever \vori< we do 

 within ourselves, "costs mdhing.''^ It is quite as 

 foolish as it is false; for it costs labor, which de- 

 serves, quire as well as time does, to be called "mo- 

 ney.'''' Tliis dogma is true only, when no more 

 profitable work is left undone, or can readily be 

 found to do. 



Annually return to your farm something more 

 than mere gratitude for all its yearly good gifts; 

 for it will often pay you double in value for every 

 aid judiciously bestowed on it. 



The above enumeration of our duties, as owners 

 and cultivators of the soil, comprises many things 

 which occur to me as essential to success in every 

 branch of husbandry; and could these duties be 

 generally fulfilled only for a year or two, I venture 

 to assert there would be no more runaways from 

 Virginia, but those whose departure she would 

 deem a happy riddance. 



Some possibly may object to the foregoing pre- 

 cepts as containing nothing new. The same ob- 

 jection might be urged, (I say it without irrever- 

 ence,) against the ten commandments. Others, 

 again, may be curious enough to inquire, before 

 they pay any regard to them, whether the adviser 

 follows his own advice. To both these objections, 

 should they ever be made, I could only reply, God 

 help the world and all the people in it, if nothing 

 more is ever to be said or written, but what is neio; 

 or if no advice is ever again to be offered, but by 

 those who have never "left undone luhat they ought 

 to have done." To my shame and sorrow, I con- 

 fess, that I do not belong to that happy, all perfect 

 class: nay more, that if I had a dollar for every 

 time I have erred against knowledge, by trans- 

 gressing my own precepts, I should probably want 

 no more money during life. For such transgres- 

 sions by any man, there is no excuse, although 

 there is an obvious cause. This is neither more 

 nor less than the old affair of the frailty we have 

 all inherited from father Adam, of the flesh often 

 provini? too strong for the spirit. That such has 

 frequently been the case in my agricultural and 

 other concerns, is the concluding, and 1 hope, pro- 

 pitiatory confession of your old friend. 



For tlie Farmers' Register. 

 HOG RAISING. 



It is a maxim in law, that "when the reason of 

 the law ceases, the law itself ceases ;" but not so 

 with custom. An old national habit is unmean- 

 ingly persevered in, when the reason of its origin 

 has long ceased to exist. This remark can find 

 no better practical illustration than in the common 

 mode of raising hogs in Virginia. !n the early 

 settlement of V'irginia, when most of the forest 

 trees were standing, the cheapest possible method 

 of raising hogs, was to permit them to run at 

 large. The acorns afforded by extensive tracts 

 of woodland, unenclosed, would keep hogs in good 

 condition witlvout grain, or with a very small al- 

 lowance of it. But since, at least two thirds of the 

 virgin forest of Virginia has been cut down, and the 

 best acorn bearing trees pillaged ii-om the remain- 

 ing third, hog raising in wood commons has become 

 entirely unprofitable. There is no opinion more 

 common among farmers, or more erroneous, than 



"that a large wood range will keep hogs in good 

 order, whether it happens to be a good mast year 

 or not." Except the acorn, and woodland is the 

 most inferior range for boss. Earth worms, green 

 vegetation, and aquatic plants, the ordinary food 

 that rhe hog obtains when running at large, are 

 found in greater abundance in cleared, than in 

 woodland. A large tract of woodland keeps the 

 hog unceasingly running and rooting, without af- 

 fording au}^ compensation for his labor — and this 

 tantalizing operation keeps him always poor. 



With these few preliminary remarks, I will 

 give your readers, Mr. Editor, my experience in 

 raising hogs. I have been engaged in the busi- 

 ness for about five years. The first year. I suf- 

 fered my hogs to run at large, like my neighbors, 

 in a common, near my settlement, a part of which 

 was my own land. They were fed by a slave 

 every morning, (such was the direction, howe- 

 ver.) at a considerable distance from the corn crib 

 and dwelling house. At a little upwards of a year 

 old, they weighed about 75 lbs. average. My 

 mode of management the second year, was but 

 little variant from the first. The overseer person- 

 ally attended more to their feeding this year, and 

 the hogs were fatter, or rather not so poor, during 

 the whole year ; and consequently, I lost more by- 

 theft the second, than the first year. I do not re- 

 collect the precise number stolen, but distinctly re- 

 collect being frequently informed, through the 

 year by the feeder, that "that another of the fattest 

 hogs ivas missing.''^ At killing time, the hogs of 

 this year averaged some 10 or 15 lbs. in weight 

 more than those of the previous year: they were, 

 however, a little older. This circumstance is re- 

 collected from the fact that they were bred by the 

 same sows — and these sows for several years pro- 

 duced two Otters of pigs annually, and about a 

 month earlier each year. JMy third year's trial 

 was pretty much a repetition of the first. They 

 were lean through the year until penned; some 

 were stolen, and when killed, were entirely insuf- 

 ficient in quantity to supply the plantation. Thus, 

 for three years, we failed to raise a sufficiency of 

 meat for tlie use of the plantation. 



In the month of Feb., 1835, (as is shown by an 

 extract from a memorandum book,) I put up about 

 a dozen shoats, recently weaned, that were pigged 

 in the December before. At the same time, I kept 

 my stock hogs, and some others not of the same 

 age, with the penned shoats in a standing pasture, 

 or lot, of about twenty acres. I gave the penned 

 shoats nearly as much corn as they Avould eat three 

 times aday. They soon became very fat, but were 

 taken with a cough in x\pril-, their tongues be- 

 came black and swollen: they were then turned in 

 the pasture with the stock hogs; their cough soon 

 lelY them, and they continued to fatten as kindly 

 as when confined in a close pen. I attributed the 

 change in their health to the cooling eflect of green 

 food, and to such other diet as the instinct of the 

 animal suggests when running at large. The ob- 

 jections to stye raising, I think, are, that it has a 

 tendency to produce vermin, which are as prejudi- 

 cial to the fattening of the hog as the most invet- 

 erate disease. They are not apt to be supplied 

 with a plenty of fresh water, or with such cooling 

 diet as tlie hog obtains running at large, to obviate 

 a tendency to inflammatory diseases. Close pen- 

 ning might be perhaps, profitably resorted to, where 

 the greatest care is taken to supply a quantity of 



