RECEIPT BOOK. 161 



Fattening of Simie. 



The Hon. Mr. Peters, of Pennsylvania, has as- 

 serted that fatting hogs should always be supplied 

 with dry rotten wood, which should be kept in their 

 pen, for the animals to eat as their appetites or in- 

 stincts may direct. It has been supposed, likewise, 

 that swine thrive better w hen they can obtain fre.sh 

 earth, which they are observed often to sw allow 

 with greediness. The probability is that nature 

 directs these creatures to the use of such substan- 

 ces as absorbents to correct the acidities of their 

 stomachs. Charcoal, it is said by some, will an- 

 swer a similar, if not more valuabl^purpose; and 

 that if swine are supplied with this last mentioned 

 substance they show but little inclination for; root- 

 ing, and are much more quiet in their pens than 

 under ordinary treatment. 



Mr. Peters, and some other eminent agricultur- 

 ists have asserted that food for swine is much the 

 best for fattening them, when it has been soured 

 by fermentation, and it is even supposed that one 

 gallon of sour wash w ill go as far as two of sweet 

 for this purpose. And an English writer tells us 

 that " the best method of feeding all kinds of 

 grain to hogs, is to grind it to meal, and mix it 

 with water, in cisterns made foi the purpose, in 

 the proportion of five bushels of meal to a hun- 

 dred gallons of water; the mass to be well stirred 

 several times each day, until it ha§ fermented and 

 become acid, when it will become ready for use. In 

 this way two or three cisterns must be kept tor fer- 

 menting in succession; and the profit will pay the 

 expense." 



Hogs cannot be fattened so cheaply in very cold 

 as in temperate weither, unless thev are guard- 

 14* 



