AND H O R T I C U L T U I{ A L REGISTER. 



^ 



PUIJl.ISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (A. 



GRICULTUHAL WakeHOUSE.) 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 29, 1840. 



E. FARMER, 



Roxbnry, Mass., Jan. 20, 1840. 

 THE Editor of the N. E. Farmer : 

 Dear Sir — Belon' I hand you a communication 

 re,-sed to Elias Phinne;/, Esq., of Lexington, 

 3S. Alay I ask a place for it in your columns .- 

 5filievinn^ the agricultural coiiiiiuinity will be 

 elited by the reply, 1 have preferred this course 

 hat of confining the matter to a private corres- 

 dence. 



1 am your ob't serv't, G. P. B. 



HAY TEA FOR SWINE. 

 Elias Phinnet, Esq.: 



[y Dear Sir— I should not thus publicly have 

 ;d upon you for any information which your 

 experience in swine breeding might suggest, 

 for the fact that your liberality is no less pro- 

 ial than is your opinion in tliese matters wor- 

 of credit. 



Within the last two or three years, I have bred 

 raised;a considerable number of hogs, but, un- 

 ithin the last few months, I have been amono- 

 inbeliovers toucliing " improved breeds" so call" 

 nd which are now circulating so much more 

 rally than heretofi re in our country. In Sep- 

 er last, my attention was arrested by tjj.r pic- 

 I representation of a Bejkshire hog, at the 

 of an advertisement in one of our agricultural 

 cations — the picture of which pleased me so 

 I that I determined fi^thwith to try them. I 

 lased at your establis," 

 ite and well known 



meadow hay. Instead of using clear water, (as I ; I physicked them thoroughly, but 



had been used to do,) I mixed the food with hay 

 tea (made after the directions advised in the work 

 above named,) and fed it out in all respects as I 

 had done previously, indiscriminately to breeders, 

 store hogs, shoats, pigs and all. The tOii was made 

 not simply by my direction, or under my supervi- 

 sion, but by my own hands. 



"It deserves particular attention," says Mr Saun- 

 ders, " that in a week or fortnight after I commenced 



ne died, the other I killed, to save its life— or rath- 

 er its pork. The choice iMackay sow I pmchase 

 at your establishment last fall, next refused he 

 foud. She was exceedingly fat, and I gave he 

 the knife, in season to prevent her dying of her own 

 accord. I will here remark that nil of these were 

 affected precisely like those which died first, except- 

 that in these last cases, the livers appeared very 

 much worse than did those of the first, beino- in 



the experiment, the pigs improved in their coats, j two cases compUtel,/ covered with these hard vTsci 

 which, from looking coarse, assumed a gloss, and ous looking biles, which must necessarily ha've de- 

 became fine and short, a prooj surely, of the great stroyed them in a day or two lon-cr had they been 

 nutrition of the food, and of its perfectly agreeing left to themselves. 



with tJie hogs," &c. A young boar, out of a fine Grass sow in my 



it deserves particular attention (««,,/,) that in a possession last summer, promised well, and I pur- 

 week or fortnight after 1 commenced the experi- posed raising him, for his stock. At three months 

 ment, the pigs (<«/ no< improve in their co«<^, or in and a half old he shared the same fate with the 

 any wise whatsoever—" a proof surely," at least, rest, from the same cause, if I could judge from th 

 that "the great nutrition of the food" exhibited it- symptoms exhibited durino- his sickness. Itappear 



i 



lit two sows of your 

 rkshire and Mackay 

 — T obtained a pair of Chinese sows out of im- 

 d stock — my Bcrkshires were from the stock 

 .lelj N. Bement and others— and in the early 

 Jf November last, my establishment consisted 

 rt of fifteen breeding sows of the Berkshire 

 ;se, Berkshire and Mackay, and other crosses,' 

 i-er with two Berkshire boars, and one large 

 ay, Berkshire and Mocha boar. As occasion 

 ntcd, I tried various experiments with these 

 lis, and, inmost cases, ivas pleased with the 

 :s. 



■vards the.latter part of December, 18.30, a 

 entitled the " „imerican Siciiie Breeder" was 

 ihed. Amongst the variety of articles recom- 

 3d therein as food for swine, I noticed that a 

 Saunders, of Stroud, Gloucestershire, Enir., 

 ade use uf hay tea with much success." TlTis 

 Mrian "fed a stock of four hundred head of 

 and in the course of his e.xperiments used 

 1.500 hogsheads of the wash— maintained them 

 very low rate of one penny per day —many of 

 were fit for the butcher," &c. &,c. Economy 

 food for swine being among the first consi- 

 ans with me, I forthwith adopted the use of 

 1. The kinds of hay recommended were, 

 51-, sanfoin, and meadow hay." I purchased 

 II quantity of each, and commenced the ex- 

 Mit. In the outset I used clover alone. I 

 Bed herdsgrass, but did not use any of the 



self rather differently in the case of Mr Saunders, 

 than it did in mine, as the sequel will show. 



From the first week after I commenced using 

 hay tea — breeders, shoats, and pigs— a« began to 

 decline. My large sows were all with pig, and 

 some of them considerably advanced in pregnancy. 

 I took the usual precaution, and commenced phy- 

 sicking — still feeding them on food mixed with hay 

 tea, however, (not suspecting evil then,) but, de- 

 spite of all my care, two of my Berkshires " popped 

 off." Dpon opening them, 1 found the lower intes- 

 tines completely clogged, the lungs spotted and 

 inflamed, and upon the liver appeared small biles 

 or pustules. Still I did not charge it to the hay 

 tea, and still I fed them as before. My Chinese 

 sow. Blue Belle, suddenly looked languid, and, for 

 a meal or two, refused to eat. I changed her food 

 and mixed a dish of meal, well warmed, with a por- 

 tion of salts and sulphur, which I placed before her. 

 She would not eat. She was in the sixteenth week 



appear- 

 ed that, uniformly, the pigs died within fortyeiglit 

 hours after the first signs of indisposition. In this 

 last case I had the boar placed alone in a new, floor- 

 ed pen, where I could watch the effect of medicine 

 upon him. He would not swallow -.-oluntarily, and 

 I prepared a dose of castor oil and sulphur, which 

 I fiirced down his throat at night. In the morning 

 I could find no proof that the physic had operated 

 and accordingly I had him tied up and poured about 

 a gil! .^f Itiiiip oil down his throat. After waiting 

 eignt hours, mid finding it p.-o;liiced no effect, but 

 that he still declined, and had become rather stu- 

 pid, I bled him in the feet, which for a while reviv- 

 ed him. Towards evening, as a last resort, I at- 

 tempted the use of mercury. Having obtained four 

 pills of ordinary size, I mashed them and tried to 

 force them into his stomach: it was nu go, howev- 

 er. We tied him up again, but he appeared in 

 great pain, and died before we could get the last 

 dose into his mouth. Upon examination, I found 



of her pregnancy, and being very heavy, I did not liis intestines knotted as in the previous cases, and 

 attempt /orriHg- any thing down her throat, lest I not a particle of the medicine administered the day 

 should kill her young, and thereby, probably, lose previous, had passed these knots. 



the mother. I accordingly left her to herself, in a 

 dry, warm pen, for the night, and in the morning 

 found her dead. I opened her, and found her lun^s 

 and liver affected, as was the case with the others, 

 but particularly like those mentioned before, with 

 regard to the intestines — the latter being, as it were, 

 tied up into knots — so badly clogged as they were. 

 Here was also a loss of twelve pigs, out of as fine 

 a Berkshire boar as can bo found in the State. Still, 

 I did not attribute it to An?/ <e«. 



Heretofore, my hogs had been fed upon squashes. 



" Blind JVaiicy,"- my oldest and best breeding 

 sow, (originally from your establishment,) of the 

 Berkshire, Mackay and Mncha breed, gave me 

 eleven pigs on the 23d of December last, ten of 

 which I found dead in her pen. Whether they 

 were born alive or not, I am unable to say, but I 

 am inclined to think they were not, as the last one 

 lived only about an hour after its birth. Nine of 

 these pigs had been purchased by different gentle- 

 men in my neighborhood, at $10 each, "to arrive." 

 This animal being a very superior one, I felt anx- 



potatoes,and "my refuse cabbages, beets, carrots, ious to .save, and of course spared no care or atten- 

 &.C. &c., together with an occasional mixture of tion necessary to effect it. I had the satisfaction 



ruta baga and house offal, all of which was thor- 

 oughly boiled and mixed before being fed to them. 

 These kinds of food having become exhausted, I 

 commenced more lately with ruta baga and sugar 

 beets, (an equal quantity of each,) boTled together, 

 mashed and mixed up with the hay tea— prepared 



to find that she experienced very little apparent 

 i.iconvenience from tJie loss of her fine brood, but 

 on the contrary, did well after her , accoucAmert<, up- 

 on a slight allowance of (/n/ food. In ten days af- 

 terward, I commenced feeding her as before, upon 

 vegetables mixed with hay tea. On the 11th of 



as before. A pair of fine sows, of the Berkshire ' the present month, she left her food in the trough, 

 and Mocha breed, showed symptoms which led me ! for the first time since I owned her, (being natural- 

 to fear that they were to be the next victims.— I ly a very hearty feeder,) and began to act suspi- 



