SWINE. 137 



kept to work it over. Frequently the stock, and especially 

 the horses, are fed largely with grain; and this, whether 

 thoroughly digested or not, finds its way to the cellar, and 

 these half-fed hogs, with voracious appetites, root and chew 

 it over, swallowing large portions of it. Now this may be 

 some sort of an expedient for lazy farmers for working over 

 their manure-heaps ; but any one who will keep his hogs in 

 this manner, and oblige them to root and wallow in this heat- 

 ing, seething excrement, inhaling the foul and noxious odors 

 which are constantly arising from it, ought, after the work is 

 accomplished, to kill these animals, and add their almost 

 putrid carcasses to the reeking mass. They will in this way 

 make excellent manure, but they ought never to furnish food 

 for an intelligent people. 



The hog is naturally a cleanly animal in his habits, and will 

 never wallow in his own or others' filth if he can avoid it. 

 The natural instinct of the animal causes him to root in the 

 ground, not for manure composting, nor to gratify an innate 

 nastiness, but to find the roots of grasses and other vegetable 

 growths for food, and also to make himself a bed in which to 

 lie, and in hot weather, to rid himself of his excessive heat. 

 The hog has no process of sweating, like the horse. The 

 immense amount of adipose or fatty tissue which covers his 

 body prevents it, and hence in hot weather he seeks the cool 

 earth and cool water in which to root and wallow and relieve 

 himself from this great heat ; but any one who will watch a 

 pig, and observe his habits, cannot fail to see how carefully 

 neat and nice he is in all his arrangements when he has the 

 opportunity. It is generally when half-fed, and confined to a 

 dirty hole, and compelled to live and lie in and on the excre- 

 ment of his own or other animals, that he exhibits filthy 

 habits. It is not his nature or instincts, but the filthy situa- 

 tion, which compels his dirtiness. 



The process of fattening pork has been a subject on which 

 opinions have largely difiered. Some feed their growing 

 stock on slops, with a little meal or bran, and a few roots. 

 Where a dairy is kept, they get the skim-milk, whey and 

 buttermilk. This is fed until they have attained a sufficient 

 growth, when corn-meal fits them for the slaughter. Others 

 begin the process of fattening as soon as the pigs are weaned. 



18* 



