360 [ASSEMBLI 



■with a mixture of "v^arm boiled potatoes, and skimmed milk, &c. 

 When the pigs are 20 days old, the males should be castrated; and 

 the females spayed when 40 days old. When the pigs are 14 days 

 old, they should be fed twice each day by themselves with milk or 

 gruel, besides receiving the usual nourishment from their mother. 

 When 60 days they should be weaned, and if the breed is good, 

 ought to weigh 40 pounds. In case you desire something very fine 

 for your table, allow two or three to remain with the sow until they 

 are three months old; feed her generously, and feed them skimmed 

 milk; at three months old, they will be a great delicacy, and will 

 weigh 75 lbs. Those pigs intended for market at a year old, may 

 be allowed the run of the barn yard where cattle are soiled during 

 the summer, and they will obtain sufficient to keep them in fine grow- 

 ing condition. In the fall they may be fed on apple pomace, sweet 

 or sour apples, or boiled potatoes, carrots, &c., until they are eleven 

 months old, then feed them one month on Indian meal, say two and 

 a half bushels to fifty gallons of water, after it has been allowed to 

 ferment until it becomes quite acid, and occasionally a few ears of 

 corn in the cob to keep their teeth firm. Once or twice a week give 

 them charcoal; at one year old, if judiciously fed, your hog? should 

 weigh between 275 and 300 pounds each. Twenty cows will yield 

 skimmed milk suflficient to fatten 13 hogs in one year, each weighing 

 300 lbs, without any other food except occasionally a small quantity 

 of Indian meal. Chinese hogs attain their full size at one year old, 

 therefore it is not worth while to keep them longer except for breed.. 

 The Berkshire, grows as much the second year as they do the first, 

 in fact they have been made to weigh over eight hundred pounds at 

 two years old. In the Devonshire survey, page 356, it is mentioned 

 that a pig of a breed from various crosses, fed upon milk and- pota- 

 toes, and finished upon four and a half bushels of barley meal steep- 

 ed, weighed when killed at 10 months old, 182 lbs, exclusive of the 

 head and feet. Marshall mentions his particulars of practice in the 

 fattening of swine, which is worthy of notice. " In one, salt was 

 mixed with their food, in the proportion of a pint to every two 

 bushels of barley meal, under an opinion that it kept them from dis- 

 orders, forwarded their fattening, and added to the delicacy and flavor 

 of the pork. In the other, the mea-l of flour, whether of barley, 

 pease or other grain, was given to them dry, and this is the practice 

 of one of the largest and best farmers on the Surrey hills, under a 

 conviction, resulting from experience, that the practice is less waste- 

 ful than the ordinary one of mixing water with the flour and form- 

 ing it into grout, which in winter is liable to be frozen, and in sum- 

 naer to be baked to the sides of the troughs." — Southern Counties 



