CHAPTER XV 



FORAGE CROPS FOR PIGS 



Briefly, without having made any precise experiments, 

 the writer considers that 6 or 7 lb. of rape is as good value 

 for pig feeding as 4 lb. of potatoes, which in turn is 

 equal to i lb. of Indian meal, or 6 lb. of separated milk. 

 A ton of rape can, of course, be produced at less than 

 one-tenth the cost of potatoes. The great point, how- 

 ever, is that we can have the rape in summer and 

 autumn, when potatoes are not available. Further, 

 the labour of attending forty pigs grazing is not as great 

 as that necessary for feeding four inside a house, since 

 all the cooking, cleaning out, and manure carting is 

 done away with. 



I once kept an account of feeding twelve pigs in the 

 old style and found that, charging potatoes at {2, per 

 ton, Indian meal at the then cost price of £6 15s. per 

 ton, and separated milk at id. per gallon, it cost 

 52s. 6d. to produce a hundredweight of pork which 

 sold at 47s. 6d. per cwt. The pigs, in other words, 

 " died in debt," like many others have done fed in the 

 same way. 



Other farmers then — about eight years ago — 

 realised that pigs fed on the old style did not pay, and 

 hence much of the present pig shortage. 



The method I follow now with summer pigs is to 

 turn them out when about ten weeks old, generally 

 ^bout mid-May, on a winter pasture^ the pasture 



