Proceedings of the, Farmers' Club. 2A1 



four. The other two years our hogs got as fat as we want them on 

 the mast. Those two years we have the sweetest and best meat, but 

 the lard is not so firm and white, but equally sweet, and the hogs so 

 fattened have never eaten more than one bushel of corn each. We 

 look for such a year in 1372, and if I live I intend to send to the 

 Farmers' Club a shoulder, middling, and ham cured with native salt, 

 and that alone, and let them boil, broil, fry and bake, smell and taste 

 what I call good enough for anybody to eat, except a Jew. I have 

 fifty head of hogs. They all eat one peck of corn per week, worth 

 twenty-five cents. It requires that much to keep them gentle. In 

 addition to that they get a little milk and salt slops, etc., etc. That 

 is sufficient until the mast begins to fall in November. If no mast, 

 they take the run of the corn-field, and are fattened on dry corn, peas, 

 etc., from four to eight weeks ; if the mast is good they are fat by the 

 first of January or February. If the mast is not good we kill only 

 what will do the family, and let the rest run another year, as the 

 older the hog the easier he is to fatten. 



Mr. H. L. Reade. — Recurring to the subject of cooking food, there 

 is a notable fact, namely, that during the past five years probably 

 five thousand farmers have tried experiments, and probably nine- 

 tenths of the number have found the use of cooked food an advantage 

 of at least twenty-five per cent. 



The Chairman. — Our Texas friend makes the point that the cook- 

 ing deteriorates the quality of the meat produced. 



Robert "W. Clay, Olney, 111. — Dr. Smith's essay on raw victuals 

 has to me the right ring. The idea of a few modernists to improve 

 or change the laws of nature certainly is absurd. I know that many 

 men have demonstrated (to themselves) that cooked food is far 

 superior to raw food in producing mutton, beef and pork, but their 

 cases are isolated ones, and only appear true from the stubborn fact 

 that art has exhausted all her resources while nature has not. Give 

 a hog all he will eat of sound corn, or other raw food, with plenty 

 of salt and water, and he will be healthier and more thrifty than 

 under any other treatment. 



Application of the Salt Mixture to Corn. 

 Mr. Joseph Bagstock, Spring Mills, 1ST. Y., made allusion to a large 

 crop of corn. The ground, sand, gravel and loam, first had thirty 

 loads of manure. Then was ploughed eight to ten inches deep, 

 thoroughly pulverized, then plated with the rows each way, spatting 

 the hills with the hoe as planted ; then, as soon as possible after the 

 [Inst.] 1G 



