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In selecting the Boar for service, no haste is required. It is too frequent- 

 ly done, when the pigs are quite young. If all of them should run together, 

 and have the same keeping until they are somewhat matured, a good judge 

 of stock will make a good selection. 



The feed of the Boar should be such as to produce a rapid growth and 

 bring him early to maturity, without laying on too much flesh. Among the 

 various kinds of food in common use, the best for growing swine are milk, 

 boiled potatoes, wheat and rye bran, with a mixture of green clover and 

 weeds, while Indian meal and all other heavy grains should be cautiously 

 fed. 



"With regard to the managenj^nt of Boars, tliey are too generally brought 

 into service, while too young ; and are fattened and killed when they should 

 be in their prime. And they are not always supplied with litter, sufficient 

 to keep them clean and healthy, especially in cold, damp weather. 



FEEDING SWINE. 

 Experiment by Albert Montague. 



I present an experiment ia feeding swine with cooked, and with una 

 cooked food. 



The meal, cooked and uncooked, was alike ; one-half corn, one-fourth 

 oats, and one-fourth broom-seed. I cooked the meal by stirring it into boil- 

 ing water, and letting it boil from thirty to foity minutes, by which time it 

 would swell to three times its capacity before boiling. The pigs selected 

 were all doing well upon uncooked food. I put four in two pens, side by 

 side ; weighed them four different times ; kept an exact account of their 

 weight at each weighing, and weighed them aljout the same hour of the day 

 each time. I fed two of them with cooked moid four weeks, and they were 

 not so heavy, by eleven pounds, as at the time I commenced. They were 

 weighed twice, during the time. They ate f(uir bushels of meal, I fed 

 eight and one-fourth bushels of meal, uncooked, to the others, and they 

 gained eighty-two pounds. I then fed the last named pigs three and one- 

 half bushels of cooked meal, and, in three weeks, they lost four pounds. I 

 fed five and a half bushels of raw meal to those, first fed on cooked food, 

 and, in three weeks, they gained sixty-one pounds. I think this proves 

 conclusively that we cannot fatten swine with profit, on cooked food. Had 

 ray pigs never had any meal, but what had been cooked, I presume they 

 might have improved a little upon it ; but, taking them from uncooked, and 

 putting them upon cooked food, they did not eat quite so freely at first, as 

 they otherwise might. Hence, a loss. But when we remember, that even 

 a hog cannot be so hoggish, as to more than fill himself, and one quart of 

 cooked meal would fill them, as much as three quarts of uncooked meal, we 

 can easily see that a pig, fed on uncooked meal, would eat nearly or quite 

 three times the value of meal, compared with the one fed on cooked food, 

 provided cooking did not increase the value. Even if cooking'increases the 

 value one-third, then a pig would not be able to eat enough to fatten readily, 

 as it must take a certain amount of food to support life, whether cooked or 

 uncooked. Taking swine from uncooked food and putting them upon cooked 

 food, in both cases, they lost in weight. On the other hand, taking them 

 from cooked food and giving them uncooked food, there was a fair gain. 



Sunderland, Oct. 8, 1855. 



