36S [Assembly 



■value of the corn or quantity fed into consideration, is ruinous in the 

 extreme, if the manure is permitted to waste as it frequently is. 

 Corn is known to consist of the most important elements of nutrition, 

 not only to cultivated plaiits, but to the animals themselves, as it 

 chiefly contains potash, nitrogen, muriatic acid, carbon, phosphoric 

 and sulphuric acid, soda, magnesia and lime, portions of which are 

 returned to the farm in the form of dung and urine, and if preserved 

 from atmospheric influences, and judiciously applied to growing crops, 

 particularly those requiring highly nitrogcnized substances, wmII en- 

 able the practical farmer to derive by the most economical method of 

 aiding and assisting nature, a crop not only abundant, but rich in 

 phosphates, gluten, &c When hog manure ferments in the open 

 air, all its volatile gases are immediately converted into ammonia, 

 and escape into the atmosphere; as your seed cannot grow without 

 it, the loss is severely felt. Therefore do not go to the expense of 

 feeding corn, unhss you intend to preserve the excrement, as hogs 

 may be fed and fattened on cheaper substances. 



A few years since, I put up two hogs in separate pens, each about 

 four feet square, and fed them for four months, alternately on sweet 

 and sour apples, they were not allowed a particle of any other kind 

 of food, nor did they receive a single drop of water during that pe- 

 riod; when killed, they weighed 150 pounds each, and were cover- 

 ed with a thick layer of fat, perfectly white and firm. The skin was 

 thin, and the pork pronounced by connoisseursexceedingly sweet and 

 fine. The hams were not inferior to Westphalia. My hogs are gen- 

 erally soiled, and seldom permitted to run at large. I find them very 

 useful in the barn yard; they consume the leavings of all other ani- 

 mals, whether trodden under foot or not, which, were it not for him, 

 would be lost, instead of being converted into rich food; although 

 the poor hog will consume all refuse matter that comes in his way, 

 still if you offer him a choice of dainties, you will soon discover that 

 he is a great epicure, and that he will fastidiously select the most 

 nourishing! Try the experiment, throw before your hogs turneps and 

 potatoes together, and you will observe that they will not deign to 

 put a tooth in a turnep, until the potatoes are all consumed; if beans 

 and oats are fed together the beans will first attract his attention, 

 and the oats will be left until they are eaten up; if corn and beans, 

 the corn will disappear before the beans. I have often thought when 

 observing their discrimination, that they knew far more about analy- 

 tical chemistry than I did; no chemist could discriminate as those 

 hogs did, before going through an elaborate analysis, and yet their 

 sagacity is such, that they will select between two species of food at 



