DIRECTIONS FOB 'FEEDING. 189 



Small meals, and many of them, are preferable to few and larga 

 ones, for swine are very apt to gorge and over-eat themselves, or, if 

 any be left in the trough, to return to it by fits and starts until it is 

 all gone ; in both cases the digestive functions are impaired, and the 

 process is not fully and beneficially performed. The best remedy 

 for indigestion is to let the animals fast for four-and-twenty hours, 

 and then to give them a small quantity of dry food, as barley or 

 peas, whole and salted, and let them fast four or five hours more 

 before resuming their usual food. 



Pigs always eat more when first put up to fatten than they do 

 afterwards ; therefore the most nutritious food should be reserved 

 until they are getting pretty fat. And at that period the food must 

 be varied, for the appetite being diminished, it becomes necessary to 

 excite it by variety ; and, besides, the same aliment constantly given 

 palls upon the stomach, and is incapable of supplying in itself all 

 the various kinds of nutriment required by the increased and altered 

 state of the body. 



It will be found advantageous occasionally to mingle a little sul 

 phur or powdered antimony with the food of swine put up to fatten ; 

 about half an ounce once in ten days will usually be sufficient. 

 These medicines tend to purify the blood, facilitate digestion, and 

 maintain the appetite. 



An American writer states that he has found gall-nuts, bruised 

 and mingled with charcoal, to act most beneficially on the health of 

 swine while being fattened ; and also recommends that they should 

 always be allowed to root in the earth of a small yard attached to 

 the sty each day, and, if they will, eat some of the earth, which will 

 be good for them. An intelligent writer in the " Quarterly Journal 

 of Agriculture" states, that on the Duke of Montrose's estate, the 

 pigs have ashes and cinders given them occasionally to correct the 

 acidity of the stomach; and that they are frequently turned out to 

 a piece of ground sprinkled with lime, which they root in and eat ; 

 or else, if this is not possible on account of the weather, a little 

 magnesia is now and then mingled in the milk. These simple pre- 

 cautions are always more or less necessary to animals that are highly 

 fed and have little or no exercise, and we should recommend them 

 to the attention of all owners of pigs. 



Cleanliness is another indispensable requisite. There is no idea so 

 utterly without foundation as the common one " that pigs love dirt," 

 and that these animals thrive best in the midst of filth. We will 

 quote one anecdote out of the many which have come to our know 

 ledge, in refutation of this absurd opinion : "A gentleman in Nor- 

 folk put up six pigs of almost exactly equal weight, and all in equal 

 health, to fatten ; treated them, with one exception, all exactly the 

 same, and fed them on similar food, given in equal quantities, to 

 each, for seven weeks. Three of these pigs were left to shift foi 



