176 



THE GENESEE FARMER 



the China ho^ is (juite too small; and most of the 

 Berkshires and Hunbllis imported into this country 

 partake too largely of the Chinese race to meet the 

 wants of large hog raisers in the United States. If 

 one has a poor range for swine, and is in a district 

 where corn is raised with difficulty, large hogs and 

 oToss feeders are to be avoided, for their meat is like- 

 fj to cost more than it will sell for. A small, thrifty 

 breed, that will come early to maturity, is best for 

 general use, where a farmer makes pork or bacon, or 

 both, for home consumption. If any number of hogs 

 are to be kept, it is important to give them a good 

 pasture in spring, summer and autumn, if not in win- 

 ter. For this purpose, a piece of swamp ground well 

 set in grass pays remarkably well. Good feed, access 

 to pure water, salt, and shelter from rain and snow, 

 form the basis of successful swine-breeding. It is bad 

 economy to permit large herds to run together. Di- 

 vide your stock into lots of not more than fifty or 

 sixty, if practicable. Neither hoe nor flees are apt 

 to trouble hogs that have sulphur mixed with their 

 salt. Many mix wood ashes either with the salt or 

 cod of their fatting hogs, and find the alkali benefi- 

 cial. Lye or pearlash water is better than raw ashes 

 to correct acidity of the stomach when it occurs. At 

 the South it is especially important not to crowd 

 hogs to closely in small lots or pens. Peas, oats, bar- 

 ley%weet potatoes, turnips and carrots maybe grown 

 for the feeding of hogs, as well as corn, grass, figs, 

 mulberries, and other fruit. 



The period of gestation in sows is one hundred and 

 twelve days; and they readily produce two Utters of 

 pigs in a year. This power of reproduction is of 

 great importance to the farmer, who is able to turn it 

 to a profit by selling pigs when from one to eight 

 months old. All youug animals give much more flesh 

 for any given quantity of nutritive matter consumed 

 than adults. Hence, pigs are rarely kept m England 

 over a year, except for breeding purposes. A 

 stunted pig rarely recovers from the shock its system 

 has sustained, and one should be careful not to at- 

 tempt to rear and fatten more hogs than his food will 

 keep to the best advantage. The same amount of 

 corn that will yield 300 lbs. of meat fed to three an- 

 imals, win produce 350 lbs. if fed to two. The truth 

 and philosophy of this statement many farmers either 

 do not understand, or sadly overlook. Before any 

 animal can add one grain to its weight of flesh, a con- 

 sderable share of its daily food necessarily goes to 

 form its so called animal heat, and to replace every el- 

 ement in its organized system removed by the absorp- 

 tion of the previous twenty-four hours of hving pro- 

 cesses. Bones, muscles, and all internal viscera, are 

 constantly giving ofi" effete atoms and taking new 

 ones of the same chemical and physiological nature, 

 to renovate the living machine. To groiv and to 

 fattea imply the organization, and deposition in the 

 animal tissues, of more atoms than before existed 

 therein. This calls for an excess of aliment, which 

 excess or surplus, beyond what the system daily parts 

 with, thousands of thoughtless husbandmen fail to 

 supply to young domestic animals, which want to 

 grow and wax fat, but being unwisely restricted in 

 food, they cannot. They are stunted, and injured na- 

 ture furnishes the owner with a small lump of meat 

 for the food eated. 



HOW MUCH CHARCOAL WILL ONE 

 HUNDRED POUNDS OF WOOD MAKE? 



Until we had an opportunity to read the accurate 

 experiments of M. Musiiet, determining the yield of 

 coal from difierent quantities of various kinds of 

 wood, we had greatly over estimated the product of 

 this valuable fuel. Of all the common woods, dry 

 chestnut yields the most coal ; it being 23.2 per cent 

 Oak yields next highest, or 22.6 per cent. Beech, 

 maple and Norway pine peld 19.9 per cent. Elm 

 19.5 per cent. ; Scotch pine only 16.4 per cent. 



From the above facts it appears that full four-fifths 

 of the dry solids in wood are burnt away and lost in 

 the making of charcoal ; nevertheless, we think that 

 20 pounds of coal derived from 100 of wood are 

 worth more for warming a room, heating iron, or gen- 

 erating steam, than 20 pounds of any wood. Viewed 

 in all its economical aspects, fire is an expensive agent; 

 and it is very far from being maintained to the best 

 advantage. ' . 



Probably not more than half the farmers m the 

 United States avail themselves of the economy of 

 using well seasoned wood for household consumption. 

 In the Northern States, where snow lies on the ground 

 six months in a year, and it is sometimes cold enough 

 to freeze mercury, good wood-houses, filled^with sea- 

 soned wood and coal are quite common. There are 

 from one to two thousand pounds of pure water in a 

 cord of green fire-wood, which has to be converted 

 into steam or vapor, if green wood be burnt, involv- 

 ing a prodigious loss of heat. Season all fire-wood 

 before burning it, if possible. 



FIRE-FANGED MANURE. 



The season of the year has arrived when stable 

 manure is prone to fire-fang — a chemical change that 

 lessens its value from fifty to sixty per cent. To pre- 

 i vent such a loss is an object of much importance m 

 I farm economy, and we wiil endeavor to explain the 

 subject in a way that will render it plain to all inter- 

 ested in providing food for plants. 



Few are ignorant of the fact that a mass ot dung 

 thrown from a stable, and particulariy that from hor- 

 ses and mules, is apt to heat, and sometimes it pro- 

 ceeds to spontaneous combustion. This heating is 

 not injurious, if only moderate in degree, for it always 

 precedes and attends fermentation, whether vinous or 

 putrefactive. The latter is what the skilfuliarmer 

 desires to increase the solubility of manure; lor Na- 

 ture rots vegetal)le and animal substances to prepare 

 their elements for reorganization in the cells of living 

 growing plants. Fire-fanging is a peculiar chemical 

 operation analagous to burning wood into coal, or 

 charrin"- hay or straw by imperfect combustion. It 

 not only checks putrefactive fermentation in a manure 

 heap, but drives off in a gaseous state all the nitrogen 

 and ammonia it may contain. H alf burnt dung and 

 straw (fire-fanged manure) refuses to ferment, rot, oi 

 dissolve for the nourishment of crops, for a long time 

 after it is buried in tiUed ground. Hence it is not 

 too much to say that a farmer who allows his dung- 

 heaps to fire-fang, really loses nearly three-quarters ol 

 I the value of the same, and often more than that. 

 How one can best prevent this excess of heatingj 



