154 THACTS on various SUBJECTS, &c. 



he used nearly fifteen hundred hogsheads of the Wash, consuming 

 when his stock was at the highest, about five hogsheads daily. 

 And, incredible as if mayappear, he maintained them, collectively, 

 at the very loW rate of one penny a head per day ; and in ex- 

 cellent store order, and many of them fit for the butcher. It 

 deserves particular attention, he says, that, in a week or fortnight 

 after he had commenced his experiments, the pigs which he had 

 before been feeding with potatoes alone, improved in their coats, 

 which from looking coarse, assumed a gloss, and became tine and 

 short ; a proof, surely, of the great nutrition of the food, and of 

 its perfectly agreeing with pigs. 



" Nor is it, says he, less remarkable, that this voracious animal, 

 though fed with this food but twice a day (which he prefers to 

 oftener) would lie down contented for the remainder, provided he 

 was well-ringed, and had a warm and dry place to shelter him- 

 self under. 



" And this he attributes to the following causes, besides the 

 nutritive properties of the wash : 



" He found it beneficial to store the boiled potatoes in large 

 casks (in which he conceives they would keep good above a 

 twelvemonth) and when they had remained in them some time, 

 freed from the water they were boiled in, (which is considered 

 noxious) they not only went further, but they generated a spirit ; 

 and the wash being also, as he apprehends of considerable strength, 

 they disposed the animal to betake himself to rest from their 

 soporific and intoxicating qualities ; a circumstance evidently 

 conducive to his quicker growth. Nor can an objection be raised 

 to this food when applied to the flesh of the animal. So far from 

 possessing any pernicious quality, it communicates, perhaps, a 

 richer and more delicate flavour to the pork and bacon than they 

 receive when fed after the common mode ; and the butchers. 



