400 REARING AND FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 



ishingly great. * * * My fondest hopes are more than 

 realised."* 



All the varieties of grain, and almost all kinds of roots are 

 now extensively used in the fattening of swine, but in general 

 undergo the previous process of cooking in some shape or 

 other. The potato, sugar-beet, ruta-baga, mangel-wurtzel, 

 parsnep and carrot are severally brought into profitable requi- 

 sition. Apples, both sweet and acid, afford a very agreeable 

 food for swine; and large numbers are fattened almost entire- 

 ly upon them with the addition of a small portion of prepared 

 grain for a few weeks previous to slaughtering them. HAR- 

 VEY BALDWIN, of Hudson, Ohio, has adopted this process of 

 fattening with marked success, since 1833. PAIN WINGATE, 

 a practical farmer and a highly respectable member of the So- 

 ciety of Friends, says, "I last year fattened an old hog and 

 two pigs upon apples, with the addition of fourteen bushels of 

 oats and pea-meal, and one bushel of Indian meal. When I 

 commenced feeding them, which was the 10th of 8th month, 

 1835, they were in rather poor condition. I fed the pigs three 

 months, and they weighed at seven months old, one hundred 

 and thirteen and one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The 

 hog I fattened four months, and when he was nineteen months 

 old he weighed four hundred and fifteen pounds." My old 

 and worthy friend DAVID COMPORT, of Byberry, assures me 

 that he has every confidence in fattening hogs on apples, and 

 that he has put up pork fattened on apples until the two last 

 weeks, when corn was substituted; and the pork was as sweet, 

 solid, and well flavoured as any he ever saw. Innumerable 

 instances could be adduced of the value of apples in the feed- 

 ing of swine, but these are deemed sufficient. 



Judge PETERS recommended the presence of some dry rot- 

 ten wood in the pens in which hogs were put up for fattening; 

 that their food be soured by a proper degree of fermentation; 

 and that the superiority of swill so acidulated, for fattening, 

 is as one gallon of the sour swill to two of the sweet. "Char- 

 coal or rotten wood, containing a large quantity of pyrolig- 

 neous acid, should be kept constantly in the pen; and salt 

 should be placed within reach of the hogs twice or thrice every 

 week."t 



The Farmer's Assistant very judiciously remarks, that what- 

 ever method may be adopted for fattening swine, it is essential 



* Care must be observed in selecting the* kettle or boiler; iron is preferable, 

 as it is well known that copper, or copper and lead, are highly pernicious, 

 generating poison. Whenever, therefore, boilers of this description are used 

 for the cooking of food, of whatever kind, they should be immediately emptied, 

 and instantly cleansed. 



t T. W. JOHNSON, Esq. 



