260 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



has been in the habit of raising a lot of hogs under that 

 stable yearly. 



Mr. Ware. We were told the other night by Mr. Hersey 

 that one experiment was not proof. We have had the state- 

 ment here of those hoo;s thriving so well under a barn with 

 very little light and air. The man who kept the Essex 

 House in Salem for many years had a large stable in connec- 

 tion with the hotel ; he had forty or fifty horses, and the 

 manure was put down in the cellar where there was very 

 little chance for the admission of light and air, — about as in 

 the stable cellar to which the gentleman from Nantucket has 

 referred. He put a lot of hogs in there and fed them with 

 the swill from the hotel, and gave them an abundance. 

 They were there several months, and when they came out 

 they did not weigh any more than they did when they went 

 in. So you see there are two cases under very similar con- 

 ditions, in one of which the hogs throve well, and in the 

 other they did not. 



In the statement I made I alluded to my own experience 

 where I had kept a few hogs on horse manure under a barn. 

 I found that they did not thrive nearly as well as they did 

 when kept where they could sleep in straw. I believe that 

 horse manure is very detrimental to the good condition of 

 hogs. 



Mr. Burnett. I think the pig is the best judge of this 

 thing, and one of the best men that I have ever seen to fat- 

 ten pork is Peter Davis of Framingham. Many of the older 

 gentlemen in this audience have heard of him. He has one 

 of the best and simplest contrivances for keeping pigs that 

 I have ever seen in this State or elsewhere. He has a cel- 

 lar which in the summer is wholly open on the south side. 

 A pen is built in every section of that cellar under the 

 rafters and sleepers, but they are only closed up sutSciently 

 to keep the pigs from dropping out. Those pens hold from 

 four to six pigs apiece, and they walk up a plank to go to 

 their nests. They keep their nests and themselves clean. I 

 agree with Mr. Allen, who spoke here about pigs, that there 

 is no doubt about it that if you give a pig a chance he will 

 take a clean nest rather than a dirty one. In that way Peter 



