334 HAMPSHIRE SOCIETY. 



Swine. 



Pork making is one of the useful arts. The most desirable 

 breed is the Suffolk, crossed with our best native. Mr. 

 Graves, of Sunderland, exhibited a fine specimen. The good 

 hog will have certain well defined marks, or points. His bones 

 will be small, his joints fine, his legs short, his breast broad, 

 with depth and elongation of body, and activity of carriage. 

 His sty ought to be kept clean and dry, and be constantly 

 supplied with clean straw. It should be about seven or eight 

 feet square, with an open yard, about ten feet square. Swine 

 should be supplied daily with water. Foul feeding and over 

 feeding are very injurious. Spring pigs, if fed on the slops of 

 the dairy, with a little provender mixed in, until September, 

 may be fed in addition, for six or eight weeks, with apples 

 and potatoes boiled together ; and afterwards, until slaugh- 

 tered, with corn or boiled meal. Grinding and cooking effects 

 a saving of grain, about one-third. Indian corn is the most 

 useful in feeding and fattening hogs ; and may be well em- 

 ployed, in connection with vegetables. The difference between 

 shelled corn and meal, appears from an experiment by Mr. 

 J: E. Dodge. One of his pigs was fed with shelled corn, and 

 supplied with plenty of pure water, and showed a gain of only 

 five pounds of pork for every fifty-six pounds of corn fed out. 

 Another pig, fed on Indian meal, mixed stiff" with cold water, 

 showed a gain of six pounds and three-quarters for every fifty- 

 six pounds of meal fed out. 



Economical farmers have found the expense of raising pork 

 to be from five to six and a half cents per pound. Where 

 nothing is made on pork, however, the profit is in the manure, 

 if the sty be kept supplied with litter, muck, &c. Experi- 

 ments have shown a material increase of'the corn crop, from 

 the use of hog manure. An acre of corn planted with hog 

 manure, will yield twice as much as when planted with .barn- 

 yard manure. The manure of ten bushels of corn, made by 

 swine, if carefully saved and applied in the hill, will add five 

 bushels to the crop. 



The slaughter of swine is often accompanied with refined 

 cruelty. Were the hog first knocked in the head, and thereby 



