AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 167 



cut up with a scythe, in preference to pasturing them in the 

 field. But judge Peters, of Pennsylvania, says, ' In summer 

 my hogs chiefly run on clover. Swine feeding on clover in 

 the fields will thrive wonderfully ; when those (confined or 

 not) fed on cut clover will fall away.' In Indian harvest, 

 the unripe ears of corn should be picked out and given to 

 the hogs as fast as they can eat them. Soft coin (as it is 

 called) will do them much more good in a green than in a 

 dried state, and it is very difficult to dry it without its turn- 

 ing niouldy. 



There is a great advantage in boiling, steaming, or baking 

 almost all sorts of food given to swine. The last American 

 edition of the Domestic Encyclopedia informs, that ' Mr. 

 Timothy Kirk, of Yorktown, Pennsylvania, fed one pig with 

 boiled potatoes and Indian corn, and another with the same 

 articles unboiled. The two animals were weighed every 

 week, and the difference between them was as six to nine. 

 The experiment was continued several weeks, and the ani- 

 mals alternrttely fed upon boiled and unboiled food, with a 

 uniformity of result, which sufficiently showed the very great 

 profit arising from boiled food.' Steaming will answer as 

 good a purpose as boiling, and with a proper apparatus may 

 be more easily and cheaply effected.^ Potatoes, meal, and 

 a little linseed boiled together, make a rich and excellent 

 wash. Boiled linseed, it is said, has a tendency to make 

 pork soft and oily, and should therefore be but little if at all 

 used towards the close of the time in which hogs are fatten- 

 ing. Grains of distilleries and the refuse of starch factories 

 are excellent for fattening swine. Sweet apples are very 

 good food for them, and a change of diet pretty often pro- 

 motes their health and quickens the process of fattening. 

 Their meals should frequently be seasoned with a little salt. 

 The Complete Farmer says that ' moist sedgy grounds are 

 good for swine, the roots which grow in such soils they will 

 eat; likewise brakes, ground-nuts, acorns, chestnuts,' &c. 

 Dr. Anderson said that the hogs that are fed upon the acorns 

 that they gather in the woods of Germany and Poland are 

 reckoned to yield the finest bacon of any in Europe ; and 

 it is to this that most people ascribe the superior excellence 

 of Westphalia hams. It might be well to try acorns steamed 

 or boiled, in order to correct their crudeness and bitterness ; 

 and it has been recommended to moisten them, and keep 



* See New England Farmer, vol. i. p. 23. 



