FEEDING, 175 



and challenge more care and attention than are usually bestowed 

 upon them. A due regard to the breed which the peculiar circum- 

 stances of the farm may call for is particularly necessary, as some 

 breeds are much better suited to pasture, and feed upon grass and 

 nerbs, than others. The most hardy and best qualified to prog for 

 themselves are the Chinese, a cross with which breed upon almost 

 any other may, under most circumstances, be prudently recom- 

 mended. Let the breed be what it may, a well-proportioned stock 

 to every farm will most abundantly requite the care and repay the 

 expense of the necessary food provided for them. A few acres of 

 clover would be well applied to the use of the hogs in summer ; but 

 in the sty it would be well to restrain them to a certain quantity of 

 water, and to lodge them clean and dry, notwithstanding the wilful 

 neglect and too prevailing opinion to the contrary ; for cleanliness is 

 as essential to the preservation of their health and well-doing as to 

 that of any other animal.' 



" These views are very different from those of a writer in the 

 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, who says, ' It is greatly doubted 

 by many competent judges, whether swine form a profitable stock, 

 at least when fed on food which requires to be raised for the purpose. 

 The results deduced from calculations entered into, to show the pro- 

 bable return for a given quantity of grain, roots, or other vegetable 

 produce, are, however, so discordant as to avail but little in the for- 

 mation of a settled and conclusive opinion. In connexion with dis- 

 tilleries, dairies, breweries, and other large establishments, they are 

 of much higher and assured importance, and return, in proportion 

 to the offal they consume, a great quantity of meat. Their chief 

 advantage as live stock probably consists in their being nourished by 

 what would otherwise either prove nearly useless, or be entirely lost. 

 When potatoes are raised as a fallow crop, exceeding the demands 

 of human consumption, the rearing of swine for bacon and pickled 

 pork becomes an advisable branch of rural economy.' 



" No one, we presume, would keep pigs without having the means 

 of feeding them at his command, all necessary conveniences, and a 

 proper system of management. Under such circumstances they 

 will return ample profit, a fact well known in America, where 

 the hog is important to a degree elsewhere unknown, Ireland not 

 excepted. 



" If this animal is profitable to proprietors of large establish- 

 ments, to great distillers, to millers, to farmers and dairymen, so it 

 is to the laboring peasant who cultivates a little garden, and collects 

 the refuse of the kitchens of his wealthier neighbors ; he will have 

 two or three litters in the course of the year, saleable as ' sucking 

 pigs' at the age of three or four weeks, and at Christmas he will kill 

 two, three, or four fat pigs, and find a ready sale for the meat, be- 

 sides turning part into bacon for bi* own family. This is no theory; 



