SWINE FOR THE HOME MARKET. 259 



their health. I mention this because I think it is a matter 

 of great importance. This clifEculty is a grave one, and I 

 am quite sure is induced in that way. Allusion has been 

 made here to keeping pigs under barns and on horse manure. 

 I am very sure from my experience that while it may add to 

 the value of the manure to have it rooted over by the hogs, 

 it is very detrimental to their growth to sleep in horse 

 manure that is fermenting and hot. In cold weather th oy 

 will bury themselves in it very nearly, and become very 

 warm indeed, and I have found that hogs do not thrive well 

 that sleep in horse manure. 



Mr. Burgess of Nantucket. I have cut a great deal of 

 pork in my time, and I think that if two hogs were put into 

 a refrigerator and cooled at the same temperature, and you 

 should blindfold me, I could tell the quality of the pork by 

 putting a knife into it. I bought fifteen pigs last spring and 

 took them home ; I sold eight of them within a short time 

 and the other seven I summered. I have been in the habit 

 of feeding those seven pigs with buttermilk, which has gone 

 directly from my house to the pigs. They have had about 

 thirty quarts of buttermilk per day, and that is all the milk 

 they have had, but they have had a reasonable amount of 

 grain with it. The pigs did not weigh over forty pounds 

 apiece when I bought them, and they have dressed from 270 

 to 300 pounds. My opinion is that buttermilk is very good 

 feed for hogs, with a sufficient amount of grain. 



Something has been said here about keeping hogs under 

 barns. I had an opportunity of buying at one time of S. F. 

 Perry & Sons at New Bedford twelve hogs which were 

 under his stable ; that is the number he has been in the 

 habit of keeping there year after year. There is no chance 

 for air to get to them except through a small space on the 

 south side of the stable. He keeps about one hundred and 

 fifty horses, and those twelve hogs were kept under that 

 stable. They weighed more than 5,400 pounds dressed. I 

 have seen hogs that were kept in the same place a great 

 many times since, that came very close to that weight. So 

 it seems to me it is not just right to say that hogs cannot be 

 kept under a stable with very little light and air. Mr. Perry 



