126 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



Hogs that are very sick should be kept by them- 

 selves, as others seem to disturb them, and often their 

 recovery depends on being perfectly still at the critical 

 period of the disease. I have never been successful in 

 drenching hogs ; I have sometimes done it, and some- 

 times they recovered and at other times they did not, 

 but even when they did recover there was nothing to 

 prove that the drenching had. anything to do with it. 

 As a rule hogs that are too sick to eat die. All hogs 

 that die of cholera, or of any other disease for the 

 matter of that, should be burned and not buried, as 

 abundant evidence can be produced to prove that 

 the carcasses of hogs dying of cholera have been the 

 cause of an outbreak years afterward. Hence, I say 

 by all means burn all dead hogs as the only absolutely 

 safe way of disposing of them. The burning operation 

 is very simple. Lay the bodies across two logs, sticks 

 or pieces of iron that will keep them up off the ground 

 so that the fire can get under them, and the grease 

 from their own bodies will usually do the work, with a 

 little wood or corn cobs added occasionally. 



How can we guard against the disease so as to 

 prevent it is a question easily asked but not so easily 

 answered. Men with medicine to sell will tell you they 

 can, but my belief, based on bitter experience, is that 

 they cannot. 



Experience teaches that the disease more com- 

 monly appears in large herds than in small ones. The 

 moral of this, then, is easily understood. Do not keep 

 hogs in large droves. I do not believe that over twenty- 

 five or thirty hogs at most should long remain together, 

 and half the number would be infinitely better and safer 



