372 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



that is said about them is true, are worthy of a 

 trial. They came from Pennsylvania, are large 

 hogs, and after looking at a Suffolk, one would 

 pronounce them long haired and coarse, but I 

 have been assured by a farmer who breeds them 

 largely, that he has killed seven months old pigs 

 that dressed -50 pounds each, and that one of 

 them gained 50 pounds live weight in seventeen 

 days upon three quarts of meal per day. Yet I 

 see by the report of the Plymouth County Society, 

 that the committee on swine refused to grant ])renn- 

 ums on Chester county hogs, because they did not 

 look to them like a profitable breed, they not pro- 

 fessing to know anything about them, nor desiring 

 to. Judged by this standard the Ayrshires Jwould 

 not he selected as milkers, as the general belief is 

 that a good cow should be "rawny" built. Where- 

 as the Ayrshires are compact and loggy. 13ut 

 perhaps the Trustees, in selecting that committee, 

 took care to have men upon it who had one piggish 

 trait in their comjjosition, and who therefore did 

 just as they pleased. 



There are many other breeds of hogs that have 

 a notoriety more or less extensive, among which I 

 find the Yorkshire, the Bedford grazier and the 

 improved Essex, but they are not probably better 

 than what we have. 



I am satisfied by experiment that when shoats 

 can be bought for six cents per pound, and dressed 

 hogs will bring eight cents, that it will pay to give 

 one dollar a bushel for corn ; that the pork will 

 pay for the feed, and you have the manure for 

 your trouble. Pork, I am aware, will not average 

 as high as eight cents per pound, neither will corn 

 average one dollar ]jer bushel, and if six cents per 

 pound is too low for shoats, you must raise your 

 own, or else credit them some'^hing for the satis- 

 faction that it is to you to see them eat the weeds 

 that you throw them in summer. 



Speaking of raising our own, reminds me that 

 / have not been remarkably successful in that di- 

 rection. Last winter, I unexpectedly found my- 

 self the owner of a sow with ]iig. I speedily con- 

 sulted all the auth'iriiies to see how 1 must feed 

 and treat her in order to give her the best possi- 

 ble chance to do welL As the time drew near, I 

 actually found myself at times reckoning up how 

 much ten pigs would come to at four dollars apiece. 

 Well, imagine my feelings upon going to the pen 

 one morning to find that the sow had brought 

 forth her litter in the night and was eating uj) the 

 last one, and like a higher law fanatic, refused to 

 give up the fugitives notwithstanding my legal 

 rights as owner. But 1 was disposed to excuse 

 her, it was her first litter and she v>as inexperi- 

 enced, or she would never have undertaken to put 

 them through so joung. 



Then I was satisfied that the hog comes in for 

 his full share of the abuse that man heaps upon 

 the lower orders of animals. As, for examjile, 

 when a man is mean and destitute of all good 

 traits of character, and si)ecially if he is selfish, 

 we call him a lior/. If he is stupid and stubborn, 

 we say that he is pig-headed, and all because the 

 bog loves a good dinner. And then, although the 

 roughest old worn out ox or cow must have a jjro- 

 fessional butcher when they are slaughtered, any- 

 body will do to kill a hog. How often have we 

 seen a hog, after being operated upon by one of 

 these buiTglers, running about and testifying by 

 his unearthly squealing as surely us if in so many 



words, "I still live," and being required to sub- 

 mit to the very annojing operation of sticking 

 again, before he could leave the world in peace. 



Then the hog has many good traits that I should 

 hardly think we give hini credit for. He is indus- 

 trious. Just suppose thai our Government and 

 military leaders had taken hold of this rebellion 

 as two good hogs would have taken hold of a 

 load of sods. Don't you see they would have 

 rooted and rooted and roofed until they would 

 have ropted the last of it into the Gulf of Mexico ? 

 And if they had not put Jeff. Davis and the other 

 leaders through as my sow did her pigs, they at 

 least would have disposed of them in as summary 

 a manner. 



The hog is sagacious. No life-long hunter 

 knows the signs of his game, or blushing maiden 

 the step of her lover, with more unerring certain- 

 ty than the hog knows the approach of his owner 

 with a pail of swill. Then with what tact and 

 l^rudence the sow yields to the hourly demands of 

 her young litter. Secretary Seward, in the sur- 

 render of Mason and Slidell, may approach, but 

 he cannot ecpial it. 



The hog has dignity, and sometimes tells even 

 man, "presume no farther." As when we chase a 

 hog to catch him in a pen, when cornered, he turns 

 and exclaims, "Woof!" Then, O, pursuer! be- 

 ware ! or, endeavoring to escape, he will run 

 against you and knock you into the mud. I know 

 it — I have experienced it. In fact, he embodies, 

 as no other animal does, that American idea, "Save 

 the pieces ;" and a well regulated farm without a 

 hog would be as unusual a spectacle as an old 

 bachelor of a tranquil frame of mind and tidy 

 wardrobe. 



It is the part of wisdom to gain knoM'ledge 

 wherever it is to be found. It was a disregard of 

 this that caused the death '^f Gen. Braddock and 

 the defeat <jf his army. When Colonel, afterward 

 Gen. Washington, saw signs of the Indians, he 

 asked Gen. Braddock for i)ermission to lead with 

 his three hundred Vermont rangers, and when the 

 Indians commenced, to post his men behind trees 

 and fight them in their own way. Swollen with 

 rage, Braddock replied, "High time when a young 

 buckskin can teach a British general to fight." 

 The consequence wlis that his men were kept in 

 ranks — a fair mark for the foe — until they were 

 cut to pieces. 



If we strive to attain to the industry, persever- 

 ance, prudence, dignity and sagacity of the hog, 

 we shall prosper as we deserve ; to whereas, if we 

 eschew those traits because they are hoggish, we 

 shall fail as Braddock did. 



A Cheap Grape Trellis. — I have a grape 

 trellis that I like better than any I have seen a 

 description of. It is substantial, does not get out 

 of pdace, and is rustic in appearance. It is made 

 of five or six inch cedar posts, eight feet long, set 

 six feet apart, with spruce jjoles fifteen or sixteen 

 feet long, nailed on to the posts a foot apart, run- 

 ning the whole length. The posts cost eight and 

 ten cents each, and the poles three dollars a hun- 

 dred here. I have used this kind of trellis for a 

 few years past, and like it better than wire. Laths 

 can i)e nailed across the poles perpendicularly to 

 tie the growing shoots, if any one sliould wish, 

 although I do not use ihem. — C, Provincetown, 

 Mass., in HorUcidturist. 



