194} FEEDING METHODS. 



vertheless, to the ancient and still too common 

 country method of filling the troughs at every feed- 

 ing hour, whether empty or not. I have witnessed 

 an old farmer repeatedly urging his servant to the 

 performance of this duty, whilst the hog-trough 

 remained constantly replenished with a mingled mess 

 of meal and dung, of equal use to the hogs to lie 

 and wallow in, as to feed upon. To speak guard- 

 edly, I have no doubt that, in former days at least, 

 one bushel of corn in three, has been in this mode 

 converted to dung, without ever having entered the 

 bodies of the animals. Two or three years since, a 

 farmer published the following experiment, as an 

 improvement of the established mode of pig feeding. 

 He took two pigs of the same litter, and of equal 

 weight, and fed them apart, one in the usual way 

 on barley-meal mixed with swill, the other ate his 

 meal dry, and had his drink given him an hour af- 

 terwards. At the end of six weeks, both hogs were 

 weighed, when the one fed on dry food was a stone 

 heavier than the other ! The reader will judge 

 whether this difference arose from the constitutional 

 superiority of the heaviest pig, or the superiority of 

 the new mode of feeding. Experiments on the 

 point may be easily made. The following is also ' 

 Newspaper information. On December 29th, 1828, 

 two pigs of the same litter were killed by Mr. Wil- 

 liamson, at Scarby, near Brigg, one weighing 43 

 stone lOlbs., and the other 47 stone 61bs. They 

 were little more than three months old. This being 

 correct, is a more profitable instance of pig breed- 

 ing than ever came within my knowledge. I wish 

 Mr. Williams had stated the breed of these pigs. 



