i 



LIVE Stock. 181 



pound, and they weighed an average of at least 100 pounds. The epout is 

 cast with the trough in one solid piece, and there are also feet east and at- 

 tached, by which it is fastened to the floor. The comers are made rounding 

 and 80 is the bottom, so that freezing does not crack them, as the ice does 

 not press against the comers or sides, but around the whole. They are 

 easily cleaned out, as the sloping sides allow the dirt to sUde out before a 

 broom, are always in place, and will never wear out The wear and waste 

 and annoyance of modem troughs became unbearable. Now I contemplate 

 this part of farm experience with a feeling akin to perfect satisfaction. The 

 trough is not patented." 



Pbospliates Essential to PIg«. — Experiments made by Lehman upon 

 young animals showed that food containing an insufficient amount of phos- 

 phates not only affects the formation of the skeleton, but has an essential in- 

 fluence upon its separate parts. A young pig was fed one hundred and 

 twenty-six days upon potatoes alone; a result of this insufficient food, ra- 

 chitis (rickets, or softening of the bone). Other pigs, from the same litter, 

 fed upon potatoes, leach-out-meat, and additional phosphates, for the same 

 length of time, had a normal skeleton; yet even in these animals there was 

 a difference according to the kind of phosphate 

 added. Two that were fed on phosphate of pot- 

 ash had porous bones, specifically hghter than 

 the others, which were fed upon phosphate and 

 carbonate of lime. 



Pig Scraping; Table. — This table can easily 

 be made by a handy man. It is formed by bars 

 of wood fixed into a frame. By using a table of 

 this description when scraping pigs, the water 



and hair fall to the ground, and the latter is ef- piQ scbapiso tablx. 

 fectually disposed of. It is a simple arrange- 

 ment, and its construction and use vrill materially aid in neatness and de- 

 spatch. 



Preparing Food for S\rlne. — A writer gives the following opinion: 

 " The present practice with the greater number, I beheve, is to prepare food 

 for pigs either by steeping, steaming, or boiling, under the beUef that cook- 

 ing in any shape is better than giving in the raw state. I am not at present 

 prepared to say definitely what other kinds of food may do, raw or cooked, 

 with pigs or other domesticated animals, or how the other animals would 

 thrive with peas or com, raw or boiled; but I now assert on the strongest 

 possible grounds — by e\-idence indisputable, again and again proved by 

 actual trials in various temperatures, with a variety of the same animals, 

 variously conducted— that for fast and cheap production of pork, raw peas 

 ■re fifty per cent, better than cooked peas or Indian com in any shape." 



Hogs aa Producers of Manure. — One hog, kept to the age of one year, 

 if ftimished with stiitable material, will convert a cartload per month into a 

 fertilizer which will pnxluce a good crop of c«m. Twelve loads per year 

 multiplied by the number of hogu usually kept by our farmers would make 

 sufficient fertilizing substance to grow the corn used by ihcm; or, in other 

 words, the hog would pay in manure its keeping. In this way we can afford 

 to make pork at low prices, but in no other way can it be done without loM 

 to the former 



