THE PIG. 485 



rated with holes, or made of lattice work then four feet of 

 well-packed straw on the sides, running to a cone above, 

 placing the hog in this position at evening." We give this 

 ingenious conception of the doctor's because it may be re- 

 garded as much cheaper, and quite as merciful, as the sys- 

 tem that some feeders adopt during the winter. But if the 

 hog could be safely hibernated, it would scarcely be profit- 

 able, when it is considered that those animals that hiber- 

 nate often come out with a loss of 40 per cent, in weight ; 

 and just think of the amount of food required to bring them 

 back into a thrifty state ! But that is not much worse than 

 the folly of throwing away four to six months' food to keep 

 pigs alive without growth. Still, as the general system 

 adopted supposes a period when a special effort is made to 

 ripen the pig for market, we propose to treat of this. 



FATTENING PEKIOD. 



A very large proportion of farmers keep their pigs 

 through the summer on poor pasture and a little refuse 

 from the kitchen, postponing till cold weather the fatten- 

 ing. This is, of course, a very bad plan, unless the feeder 

 has a warm house in which to feed them, and then quite 

 indefensible, as every feeder should make the most of the 

 warm season for fattening, for it will take a large propor- 

 tion of the food to keep them warm much larger than is 

 generally supposed. We desire to make this matter plain, 

 and will give some experiments that have been made to 

 test it. 



Mr. Joseph Sullivant, in his pamphlet, gives an experi- 

 ment, tried at Duncan's Falls, Ohio, in 1859, where a large 

 lot of hogs were weighed, on the 10th of September, and 

 turned into a forty-acre corn-field, where they remained 

 till October 23d. Having eaten down the field, they were 

 again weighed, and found to have gained 16,000 pounds; 

 or ten pounds per bushel of corn, estimating the yield at 



