90 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



selves and something to have for themselves, 

 and let your actions say to them, "I am living 

 for you, and trying to help you to live and make 

 home pleasant," and you will have less cause 

 to complain ol" work poorly done, and less de- 

 sire on the part of your children to leave the 

 farm. Arthur. 



New Hampshire, Dec, 1866. 



Remarks — Perhaps the above article will 

 be read with more interest by some, with our 

 assurance that it was written, as it assumes to 

 be, by a farmer's boy. Ed. 



HO"W TO KILL A HOG. 

 Hogs, undoubtedly, were made to be killed, 

 and eaten after they were killed. But it is best 

 to do a painful thing — pamful to the animal 

 and to the ojierator — in as humane a man- 

 ner as possible. We have always thought 

 the mode commonly practiced — that of stick- 

 ing them — to be iranecessarily painful, and long 

 in the operation. First, the hog is hunted 

 down in order to catch him, and is generally 

 worried, and sometimes injured in this opera- 

 tion ; then follows the sticking process, which 

 must be a severely painful one. A better way 

 is to take a pistol that carries a ball as large as 

 a common pea, walk quietly up to the animal, 

 say within six or eight feet, and discharge the 

 ball into the head, midway between the ears, 

 but a Httle below them. If the shot has been a 

 true one, he will fall dead instantly, and proba- 

 bly without the slightest sensation of pain. He 

 may then be bled at once. We have killed 

 several worn-out horses in this way. They in- 

 variably pitch forward to the ground, and un- 

 doubtedly die without pain, as they do not stir 

 a limb nor move a muscle. Before shooting 

 they are led upon a bed of muck, prepared for 

 the purpose, where they are cut up, covered 

 with the muck, and left to decompose. 



The following is another mode of doing the 

 work, sent to the American Agriculturist by a 

 Philadelphia correspondent : — 



"I take any kind of gun that will go "loose," 

 load with, say one-thinl charge of powder, and 

 a. plug of hard ivood about an inch long and 

 the thickness of the ramrod. This I shoot di- 

 rectly into the centre of the forehead of the 

 hog, and he drops at once. The head is not 

 injured as to meat ; there is no danger of the 

 liog biting you. You have no hard tugging 

 ,ind lifting to catch and throw him, both o( 

 ivhich are hard and dangerous work, and the 

 'lOg will bleed out better, as the nervous sys- 

 tem receives so sudden a shock, that he is 



not able to draw the blood into the lungs, in 

 case the windpipe should be cut in sticking. 

 It is easy to picture laying hogs on their backs, 

 but try it one year, and shooting the next, and 

 my word for it, your pen will ever afterwards 

 be free from squealing on butchering day." 



HOPS. 



The trade in hops this week has been con- 

 fined to the immediate wants of local consum- 

 ers ; the market, however, is assuming a posi- 

 tion by which, with continued light arrivals, 

 together with the receipt of further orders for 

 export, the present tirm market must give 

 way to a material advance in prices. At no 

 time within the memory of the trade have re- 

 ceipts been as hght in the month of December 

 as now. This proves the correctness of the 

 reports of the prevailing scarcity in the grow- 

 ing sections, and tends to increase the firmness 

 of this market. In this situation, moi'e liberal 

 receipts are much needed, without which our 

 present stock will not carry us very far into 

 the new year : and brewers wlio have neglect- 

 ed to secure their supplies will see the necessi- 

 ty of doing so without further delay, having 

 been forewarned that we have no surplus of 

 old hops on hand and that the general scarcity 

 and high prices of foreign hops precludes the 

 probability of importations. The importations 

 into New York last season were 20,000 bales, 

 add to this 10,000 bales of old hops then on 

 hand and it will show a deficiency in the growth 

 of 1865 of 30,000 bales. Exports from New 

 York since November 10,263 bales ; Imports, 

 35 bales. We quote : Old American, 20 a 

 4:5c. ; Old Foreign, 40 a 55c. ; New American, 

 inferior, 35 a 45c. ; do. Prime, 50 a o5c. ; do. 

 Fancy, 60 a 65c. N. Y. Tribune. 



Osage Hedge. — A few weeks since, a cor- 

 respondent of the Prairie Farmer entered his 

 objections to the osage orange as a hedge plant, 

 stating that it would neither stop cattle nor 

 swine. These objections seem to have had good 

 eifect ; for they brought out other correspon- 

 dents in reply, who have furnished some inter- 

 esting and valuable statements in favor of the 

 efficiency of these hedges. Among others, C. 

 W. INIarsh states that 16 years ago he set out 

 2,000 plants, making 80 rods of fence. A 

 proof of the good manner in which the work 

 was done is furnished by the fact that all 

 are growing to-day except two. He says he 

 has exercised the same care that he should give 

 in raising a good crop of corn. In five years 

 a good hedge Avas formed, and it is now eleven 

 years since the line was turned out as a fence, 

 and no horse or horned animal has ever been 

 through it in that time. One end has been 

 used for the last three years as a fence; lor hog 

 pasture, since which time no hogs or pigs have 

 ever been through it. The cost has not been 

 twenty-live cents per rod. — Cotintry Gent. 



