THE HEADMAN’S JOB 213, 
this medicine can be counted on to keep a grow- 
ing and fattening herd healthy during its nine 
months of life. 
It is claimed that it is unnatural and artificial 
to confine these young things within such narrow 
limits, and so it is; but the whole scheme is 
unnatural, if you please. The pig is born to die, 
and to die quickly, for the profit and mainten- 
ance of man. What could be more unnatural ? 
Would he be better reconciled to his fate after 
spending his nine months between field and sty ? 
I wot not. The Chester White is an indolent 
fellow, and I suspect he loves his comfortable 
house, his cool stone porch, his back yard to dig 
in, his neighbors across the wire fence to gossip 
with, and his well-balanced, well-cooked food 
served under his own nose three times a day. 
At least he looks content in his piggery, and 
grows faster and puts on more flesh in his 
250 days than does his neighbor of the field. 
If the hog’s profitable life were twice or 
thrice as long, I would advocate a wider lib- 
erty for the early part of it; but as it doesn’t 
pay to keep the animal after he is nine months 
old, the quickest way to bring him to perfection 
is the best. One cannot afford to graze animals 
of any kind when one is trying to do intensive 
farming. It is indirect, it is wasteful of space 
and energy, and it doesn’t force the highest 
product. Grazing, as compared with soiling, 
may be economical of labor, but as I understand 
