94 A MANUAL ON THE HOG. 



eases which affect the respiratory organs, which are 

 in nearly every case of cholera, more or less implicated. 

 It should be the especial care of the farmer to provide 

 suitable sleeping places for his hogs y for it is while asleep 

 that all animals are most susceptible of disease. There 

 is perhaps, no cause so iruitful of disease in the hog 

 as sleeping in dust. Every one who has had experience in 

 raising hogs will- admit that sleeping in dust invariably pro- 

 duces disease of some kind, and especially of the respira- 

 tory organs and canals. The first evidence of the ill effects 

 of inhaling dust in their beds is manifested by a wheezing 

 cough when leaving them, which is also one of the first 

 premonitory symptoms of cholera. 



The health of the hog is impared by the dust, and the 

 system brought into a debilitated condition, favorable to 

 both the propagation of the acari or mange insect, and to 

 the production of lice. The seeds of disease are often 

 sown in the system while bedding under old houses or 

 shelters, in manure heaps or rotten straw, or in dusty 

 places in times of drouth, and lay dormant for a time until 

 they are developed by some sudden change of habit or of 

 food, into a serious malady -perhaps cholera. 



Hogs should never be allowed to consume the flesh of 

 their own kind, or that of other animals, especially that of 

 animals which have died of disease. 



It is too often the practice of farmers to drag dead ani- 

 mals into their stock range, to be eaten by hogs, dogs* 

 and buzzards, instead of adding their carcases to the com- 

 post heap, and thus materially increasing its value. While 

 the cause of cholera, so called, is not positively known, it 

 is a well established fact that those in which the seeds of 

 disease have been sown by neglect, or improper food, are 

 more susceptible, not only to cholera, but to any malady 

 to which they are subject. It is confidently believed that 

 sleeping in dust, exposure to sudden changes of temperature, 

 to filthy sties, and foul air, irregularity in feeding, alterna- 



