132 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



food, fever ; a wet bed, rheumatism ; and a big bunch 

 together will breed disease. With a clean skin, good 

 air, a variety of food, a dry bed and a few together, and 

 lots of out-of-doors, they will do well. 



When at pasture they find many roots, nuts and 

 pebbles, besides being continually active, which does 

 more than food for their hearty health, rapid and easy 

 digestion and speedy, profitable growth. 



I hope that American farmers who raise hogs on 

 such foods as grass, clover, grain and milk will lose 

 no opportunity to condemn the feeding of pigs upon 

 slaughter-house refuse and such disgusting, offensive 

 and disease-breeding material. Hogs fed on the offal 

 of animals are only too liable to be infested with trich- 

 inae ; and the whole idea of giving such stuff to hogs 

 is a wrong one, tending only to bring the use of pork 

 for human food into disrepute. Slaughter-house waste 

 should be converted into fertilizer, of course ; not 

 given to pigs and rats, nor allowed to go to decay. 

 Some of our neighborhood slaughter-houses are dis- 

 creditable ; yet thither not a few hogs are taken for 

 butchering. The Government is beginning to point 

 out some of these evils through its meat inspectors. 



THUMPS. This disease is quite common (especially in the 

 early spring) and is exceedingly hard to handle when once con- 

 tracted. More can be done to prevent than to cure. You visit 

 the sow and litter in the morning- to give them their accus- 

 tomed feed, and you notice that one of the fattest and plumpest 

 ones does not leave his bed as do the others. You enter the 

 sleeping room and compel him to come out, which he does some- 

 what reluctantly, and you will notice that his sides move with 

 a peculiar jerking motion, and if allowed he will soon return 

 to his bed. Rest assured he has thumps, and nine chances to 

 one he will die. It is caused by fatty accumulations about the 



