Other Phases of Orchard Management 219 



Corn, barley, wheat, and field peas are the grains avail- 

 able for fattening. Barley makes a better-flavored pork 

 than corn. It should be either rolled or soaked before 

 feeding. Good gains are secured from feeding wheat, 

 but the meat is tough, and both meat and fat have a dark 

 color. Where wheat is the cheapest feed, the hogs 

 should be fed the last four to six weeks on corn or barley. 

 This will whiten and harden the flesh and give it a better 

 flavor. Wheat should be either ground or soaked. 

 Field peas make a specially fine-flavored pork. It is 

 customary to fatten pigs by letting them pasture the 

 unharvested ripe crop; sometimes the ripe peas and vines 

 are cut and stacked like hay, and the entire dried product, 

 peas and hay, fed to the hogs. An acre of good peas 

 will make 400 pounds of gain on hogs when pastured, 

 and from 600 to 800 pounds of gain on hogs when harvested 

 and fed to them in small pens. 



While suckling the pigs, the sow should be fed liberally 

 with milk-producing feeds, such as grain, alfalfa, and roots. 

 A limited supply of cull fruit is good, but if given all 

 the fruit she will eat, the tendency is seriously to reduce 

 the milk flow. A few days before the pigs are to be 

 weaned, the sow's feed should be reduced to water and 

 alfalfa, and she will become dry without injury to her 

 udder. 



The pigs should not be weaned earlier than eight weeks 

 of age, and ten weeks is better. It is best to feed them 

 three to five times daily when first weaned. In two weeks 

 feeding twice daily is sufficient. When the pig reaches 

 a weight between 50 and 75 pounds, feed from one-half 

 to one pound of grain daily at night, and let him spend 



