120 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[August, 



good-stepping; competitors for the honors of 

 the turf ; but such animals as shall develop to 

 good roadsters so the owner can, upon occa- 

 sion, go to the village for the doctor or any- 

 body else he wants to see, and not be obliged 

 to work his passage or use up too much pre- 

 cious time. If the horse can strike a three- 

 minute gait it won't hurt his salable qualities 

 at all, but he may be a good horse for all es- 

 sential needs and not approximate to that 

 time. The general farmer cannot afford to 

 breed merely for speed. That should be left 

 for those who have taste, time and means to 

 devote to this work, which at best is but a 

 lottery. If a farmer has a heavy horse which 

 is sound and all right, he has no difficulty in 

 disposing of him. With the small animal, 

 unless he has speed to offset his diminutive 

 proportions, he'll find customers will pass him 

 by and seek for those of more size. 



Light horses, as a rule, are not profitable to 

 use upon the farm. Often a fine, heavy horse 

 will do the work upon a farm where two 

 lighter ones would be required to do the same 

 work. It is true a large horse will usually 

 consume more feed than a small one ; and so 

 he will do more work and the ratio of differ- 

 ence in work is far greater than the difference 

 of cost of keeping, for eight times out of ten 

 the old mare will out-eat a 300-pound heavier 

 horse which is just bordering on his teens. 

 " But my lighter horse is spryer and can get 

 around faster than your big, lummoxy fellow, " 

 you say. That doesn't always follow, neither 

 is it more than an exception to a general rule; 

 close observation will reveal the fact that the 

 rule will apply as often the other way. I be- 

 lieve it to be the part of economy that we 

 raise larger, sounder and better styled horses. 

 It may cost a little more in the outset, be- 

 cause we should use the best males as well as 

 good mares, but the improvement and conse- 

 quent enlianced value will more than repay 

 the increased cost. — L. F. Abbott, in Rural 

 New Yorker. 



FEED FOR YOUNG PIGS. 



Perhaps there are no greater mistakes made 

 in feeding animals than is often the case with 

 pigs. Indeed, we are inclined to think that 

 the climax of expensive absurdity is reached 

 in swine feeding. Often animals do grow and 

 develop in spite of very bad feeding. But our 

 swine, we almost say as a rule, do not develop. 

 Fat takes the place of development, and some- 

 how we get the idea that fat is growth. If 

 we do not make this mistake almost from the 

 beginning, we are entirely too apt to fall into 

 the error before the pig reaches maturity. It 

 is always a very great mistake, and the earlier 

 in the life of the pig that we begin to make it, 

 the greater mistake it is. To expect a young 

 pig to develop bone and muscles, without 

 feeding it anything that will make bone and 

 muscle, is a great absurdity. Yet that would 

 often seem to be the theory in hog raising. 

 After its birth the pig is either left to take 

 care of itself, the dam not even being properly 

 fed sometimes, or is fed upon that reprehensi- 

 ble theory that fat is growth. Men have 

 been known to feed all the corn meal that the 

 young animal would eat, just as soon as it 

 could be taught to eat corn meal. What 

 could naturally be expected as the result of 

 such a course '? Corn meal contains sixty-six 



per cent, of starch, seven per cent, of fat, te" 

 per cent, of nitrogenous elements, and scarcely 

 any phosphate of lime. Now a growing pig 

 can be literally starved to death upon such a 

 ration, although it may be so fat that it can- 

 not stand upon its feet. Indeed, its inability 

 to stand upon its feet would soon manifest 

 itself, and would be an evidence that it was 

 starved. Its legs would not be strong enough 

 to hold it. Its bones and muscular system 

 would have nothing to feed upon, and must 

 necessarily grow weak, at least weak in pro- 

 portion to its age and [growth of fat. There 

 would all the time be a demand for an in- 

 crease of muscular and bony strength to sup- 

 port the growing weight, and_ no response 

 whatever to the demand. 



In the artificial feeding of young pigs skim 

 milk stands at the head of food, and when 

 there is plenty of that there need be no serious 

 uneasiness about results. Cooked corn meal 

 may be advantageously added in small quan- 

 tities to the milk— provided^there is plenty of 

 milk, as it is the milk that will furnish the 

 albuminoids and mineral elements. Indeed 

 the proportion of those is so very large, that 

 to produce the very best results corn meal in 

 proportion of say about one pound to a quart 

 of milk, is very desirable. This ration about 

 equalizes the albuminoids and fat producing 

 elements, as required by the animal system. 

 If the farmer does not have the milk, cooked 

 corn meal and oats in equal parts and one 

 part of oil meal will prove to be a good ra- 

 tion. Some grind oats and peas together, 

 and feed cooked, and others feed six parts of 

 peas, four parts of corn and one part of flax- 

 seed. If our pigs do not gain as much as a 

 pound a day in live weight we can conclude 

 at once that there is a radical defect in our 

 system ot feeding. The young pig should be 

 fed liquid food, as that is more easily digested, 

 and should after weaning, be fed five or six 

 times a day for a considerable time, after 

 which the number of times can be reduced. 



Of course the feeder will not undervalue 

 grass as a food for pigs. If he does, he will 

 dispense with a very cheap means of feeding, 

 and injure the animal besides. It will not 

 answer to feed growing animals wholly upon 

 concentrated food. Concentrated food enters 

 the stomach in a solid mass, and it requires 

 time for the gastric juice to mix with it and 

 digest it. But if with the concentrated food 

 grass is fed, the mass is loosened up and the 

 gastric juice has a greater surface to attack. 

 And there is one other very important matter 

 to be taken into consideration in connection 

 with pigs running upon grass. It furnishes 

 them exercise, and exercise, the reader need 

 not be told, is about as important as food. It 

 is true that a pig does not need a quarter 

 section to range over to get exercise enough, 

 but on the other hand, it should not be too 

 closely confined, and if on pasture it will be 

 in no danger of tliat. If it has plenty of room 

 it is sometimes the case that soiling is very 

 profitable. It requires less land to support a 

 pig if the soiling system is adopted, and where 

 there are not many pigs it is altogather prac- 

 tical and profitable. 



THE LIMIT OF WHEAT PRODUCTION. 



Dr. Max. Bering, a scientist sent by the 

 German Government to investigate the limita- 



tions of wheat production in America, has 

 reached home and made his report. He gives 

 it as his opinion, based upon investigations 

 carefully pursued in California, Oregon, 

 Washington Territory, Dakota and Minneso- 

 ta, that the "United States is near the limit 

 of its ability to flood Europe with cheap 

 wheat." He argues that the great increase 

 in the production of wheat that has occurred 

 only in the last fifteen years, has resulted from 

 increased acreage through new settlements, 

 and not from any increased production per 

 acre in the older grain fields. He might have 

 said, further, that while there are millions of 

 acres of good wheat lands as yet untouched, 

 much of that which has has been employed in 

 the production of wheat is being put to other 

 uses. And still further, he might have said 

 that by the exhaustive methods of wheat 

 farming in America tne rank productiveness 

 of the soil is being impaired, and that other 

 crops are proportionately more profitable. 

 These considerations, while not mentioned, 

 were doubtless thought of, and part of the 

 basis of Prof. Searing's somewhat striking as- 

 sertion. With him, we believe the limit of 

 wheat production in America has practically 

 been reached. The export totals may in- 

 crease a little, but .ve doubt if the great ad- 

 vances of the past ten years will be paralled 

 in years to come. The country will have the 

 capacity to produce more wheat as it becomes 

 more populous and its wild lands are put un- 

 der the plow, but it will be found that wheat 

 production on the great and exclusfve scale 

 to which it has been carried in certain locali- 

 ties, will not pay. 



Nothing is to be expected from improved 

 and more careful methods of cultivation of 

 which we hear so much. Whatever the im- 

 provement may be, it will not compensate for 

 deterioration of the soil under repeated crop- 

 pings. No lands under cultivation will ever 

 yield more than they have during the past 

 years, and it may be doubted if they will 

 yield as much. Certainly they cannot always 

 maintain their present high standard of pro- 

 duction. Besides, lands are becoming more 

 valuable as the vacant districts of the country 

 becomes fewer, and the country becomes 

 richer, and after they have attained a certain 

 value, wheat cannot be raised upon them with 

 profit. For example, when land was worth 

 fifteen dollars an acre in some of the far west 

 States ten years ago, wheat growing was more 

 profitable than it is now when the land is 

 worth three times fifteen dollars per acre. 

 While the value of the farm has increased 

 there has been no proportionate increase in 

 its product or the price of that product. Upon 

 a much greater investment, the farmer does 

 no greater business than he did ten years ago. 



The considerable decrease of wheat produc- 

 tion in the States of the upper Mississippi, 

 and the lighter decrease in Iowa, Minnesota 

 and Wismonsin, illustrate not degeneracy of 

 soil or lessened activity in agriculture, but 

 that wheat has been found an unprofitable 

 crop. More rapid and cheaper transportation 

 has make it possible to dispose of products 

 which a few years ago it was impossible to 

 get to market in saleable condition. By 

 means of the refrigerator car, shipments of 

 fresh dairy products from Minnesota to the 

 great markets of the Atlantic cities is now as 



