26 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



tity furnished at any one time be completely consumed. A 

 clean trough is a great restorative for a lost appetite. A hog 

 can eat without a table-cloth, but he likes a clean plate, — or, 

 what is the same thing to him, a clean trough,— as well as he 

 who feeds him. Swine should not be surfeited, if you would 

 have them eat with a keen appetite. Gorge them to-day, and 

 to-morrow they are shy and dainty feeders. The operation of 

 fattening is a gradual one, but it is also the quickest and cheap- 

 est performed when the fullest amount of material needful to it 

 is furnished. If it be true, as some physiologists assert, that 

 plants live mainly on air, it is very certain that swine cannot 

 thrive on any such food. They need good food and a plenty of 

 it. They cannot be cheated out of it, either by avarice or phi- 

 losophy, without being cheated yourself 



In reference to the often-disputed question whether pork-raising 

 is a profitable part of our farm pursuits, much, of course, de- 

 pends on the relative price of pork and of the food necessary to 

 make it. At the present price of corn and pork, it is contended 

 by some that all the profit, in keeping hogs, is in the manure 

 made by them. This may be true if all the food is to be bought 

 for them, but there is a large amount of valuable materials on 

 almost every farm, such as skim-milk, small potatoes, wind-fall 

 and other unsalable apples, unsound and small ears of corn, 

 which, we believe, can be applied in no way more profitably 

 than in the feeding of swine. And as many such articles go to 

 make a given amount of pork, it is difficult to arrive at the ex- 

 act cost of fattenmg it. But if you have to buy all the food for 

 your swine, corn is probably the most profitable ; and it is be- 

 lieved by your Committee, that pork can be raised for six cents 

 a pound on corn when it is sixty cents per bushel, at seven cents 

 a pound when it is seventy cents per bushel, and so on, either 

 way, one cent a pound on the pork, and ten cents a bushel on 

 the corn. And this conclusion is drawn from the fact that a 

 good thrifty hog that will eat four quarts of corn a day, will 

 gain a pound and a half of pork a day. 



To promote the growth of swine, they should be well littered, 

 so as to have a clean bed, and their pen should be kept dry, 

 though not too close. In winter, it is more difficult to make 



