354: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, . 
Keally Valuable Hogs. 
There is a large farmer living in New 
Jersej% whose habit it has been for many years 
to get his information by going after it himself, 
lie is what New England folks call “ 'forehand¬ 
ed"—ihaX is, he always has or can make time to 
do what he wants to. If he wants to build a 
barn, he and his sou go about and see barns, 
take measurements, study all the fixtures and 
conveniences, and take notes; then, when ready, 
they draw their plans and build. They do just 
so about other things. A while ago they wanted 
to renew their stock of hogs, and as they had 
long favored a large breed, they set to work to 
find what they wanted. 
Without commending their judgment in pre¬ 
ferring the Chester County breed, we give the 
results. On an adjoining page are portraits of 
several very handsome swine. They are of the 
so-called Chester White breed, and were select¬ 
ed by our friends after visiting every herd of 
note in the county, and others outside of it. 
They found such animals as they wanted, and 
bought them, paying any price asked, and even 
tempting breeders’ best stock away from them 
with the all-powerful greenbacks. Therefore, 
we say, if there is any such thing as a Chester 
White breed, they have it—and our readers 
have a picture of as true a lot of Chester Co. 
hogs as there are in the country. The artist has 
had his own way, and made pictures which rep¬ 
resent them as accurately as possible. Their 
legs are not trimmed down to suit any breeder’s 
fancy—neither are their backs and bellies 
straightened and filled out, the heads and ears 
trimmed down, and all sorts of exaggeration em¬ 
ployed to show them as somebody might think 
they ought to be, instead of as they are. The 
boar is months old, the sows 7, and the roast¬ 
er, not a fortnight old, is the choice one of a re¬ 
cent farrowing of another sow, bought at the 
the same time that the others were. 
There appears to be two rather distinct kinds 
of hogs which go by the name of Chester 
Whites,aud these have been mixed considerably, 
so that important characteristics of the hogs are 
not fixed. They are all large, but do not all 
grow to extraordinary size—nor have they all 
precisely the same shape. The ears of some lop 
forward, others incline outward, others still, 
stand up straight and pointed. Some ears 
are soft and silkj'^, others fleshy and coarse. 
All these things indicate a lack of good breeding, 
which prevents these swine being recognized 
as a true breed. They have many good points, 
however; they are large, small boned, quick 
maturing, easy feeding, and well coated, but to 
compare them for irersistcntly uniform charac¬ 
ters with the Berkshire, Essex, Chinese or Suf¬ 
folk breeds, is preposterous. The hogs which 
we picture are by no means fat, but simply in 
good breeding order, yet when we saw them a 
few days since, they struck us as so even and 
well-formed—so broad on the back, especially 
in the loins and shoulders, and so good all over 
that we wanted our artist to make a picture of 
them for their beaut}'-, aside from the fact that 
they represent the choice of the Chester County 
herds. The dressed weight of 7 pigs 7 months 
old, of the same breed, all of one litter, killed 
last year by the owner of these, was respectively 
as follows: 238, 258, 237, 243, 283, 310,240 lbs., 
which is considerably more than one pound for 
each day of their lives, (in one case over Ik 
pounds. The same is true of some hogs 15 to 
18 mouths old, killed at the same lime, min¬ 
utes of the weights of which we have mislaid. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.—No. 34. 
What cold wet weather we are having! Corn 
is at a stand-still, and unless we have more sun¬ 
shine the ears will be small. My corn is drill¬ 
ed, and I suppose will suffer more than that 
planted in hills—though so far, I think it is as 
good as most fields in this neighborhood. At 
all events, if we have no frost, I shall have 
plenty of fodder. The second growth of clover 
is splendid, and the prospect now is, that we 
shall have a great yield of seed. I plastered part 
of the clover on the second of June. We sow¬ 
ed it with a broadcast plaster drill. The clover 
was knee high, and when we had sown about 
eight acres, there came up a shower and the wet 
clover reached to the drill and clogged it, and 
we had to stop in the middle of the field. I 
could not see any marked, effect of the plaster 
on the first crop, probably because it was sown 
so late—though there are those who think plas¬ 
ter does most good -vyhen sown on the leaves. 
But now, on the second growth of clover, you 
can see to an inch how far the plaster was sown. 
You can see it the whole length of the field, and 
also on the half breadth sown till the drill stop¬ 
ped. Nothing could be more distinct. There 
is of course danger of getting too large a growth. 
The seed may not mature. But I can hardly 
bring myself to believe that it is possible to make 
land ou this farm too rich for any crop. I under¬ 
stood that one of my neighbors, when he heard 
last year that I was seeding down my wheat with 
clover, and that I had been obliged to pay $17 
a bushel for the seed, remarked “ Well, he may 
sow it, but he will get no clover. That field nev¬ 
er has raised any clover and it never will. It is 
run to death.” But I had as good a crop on the 
whole field as I could desire, with the exception 
of about an acre. This was poor, and is com¬ 
paratively poor now, though the difference is 
not so striking on the second crop as on the first. 
I believe I told you before why this was. When 
I bought the farm, three years ago, 14 acres of 
the field was in corn, and 18 acres in clover, so 
called—but there were far more thistles than 
clover. Well, the following spring I sowed the 
corn land to barley, and broke up the clover sod 
and sowed part of it with peas, and planted 
three acres with potatoes. The potatoes -umre 
manured with ammoniated Pacific guano, and 
gave me 200 bushels per acre. The peas had 
also some guano and plaster, and also part of 
them superphosphate; the barley had part bone 
dust and part superphosphate, and other arti¬ 
ficial manures. An acre or so, in the barley and 
in the peas, had no manure of any kind. ^It is 
this land that gave such a poor growth of 
clover. And recollect it is two years ago last 
spring since the manures were used. The bar¬ 
ley was sown late, and only yielded about 12 
bushels per acre, and was of such poor quality 
that the maltsters would not buy it. The peas 
were a little better, but still very poor. The 
potatoes were good. The barley and pea land 
was sown to wheat, and produced a little over 
15 bushels per acre. The potato land was sown 
with barley, and received another slight dress¬ 
ing of artificial manure, and gave a fair yield, and 
nothing more than fair—but the clover ou this 
part is superb. “ The husbandman waiteth for ' 
the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long pa¬ 
tience for it.” I have unbounded faith in good 
culture and manure, but my first two years’ ex¬ 
perience ou this farm tried it sorely. But this 
year I feel quite encouraged. My crops are good. ■; 
The barley ou the five acres of wet land that 
I under-drained, turned out better than I expect¬ 
ed. When we were getting ready for “ the 
threshers,” William asked me where the barley 
was to be put. I told him we would put it in 
such a bin. “ It will not hold it.” I told him I 
thought it would. He has been on the farm six 
or eight years, and knew the size of the bin. 
“How much barley do you think you will have ?” 
he asked. “ I think we shall have a little over 
20 bushels per acre.” “ Thomas and I,” he said, 
“ think this five acres in the bay will go 40 bush¬ 
els per acre.” “ I told him he was as wild as a 
hawk; that I would bet him a hat it did not go 
thirty.” Well, we commenced threshing, and 
soon had a hundred bushels in the bin, and then 
fifty more. “ Two hundred ” was the next re¬ 
port, and still the bottom not reached. “ Two 
twenty,” and considerable excitement' in the 
barn. “Two thirty,” hurrah! “Two, forty.” 
Clean up the floor. Whoa. “How much?” 
“ Two forty-five. Forty-nine bushels per acre, 
and I don’t believe there is over four and a half 
acres in the field ! ” 
So much for under-draining, and the free use 
of the cultivator among the corn. About an 
acre of the field had a heavy dressing of super¬ 
phosphate last year for corn. I could not see 
that it benefited the corn in the least. It was 
sown broadcast with a machine after the corn 
was up. I have usually applied it in the hill. 
But it is clear to my mind that superphosphate 
and other artificial manures, do comparatively 
little good on Indian corn in this section. I 
think one reason for this is that corn delights in 
a soil abounding in organic matter. Artificial 
manures do not supply this, while barn yard 
manure, peat, clover, and grass sod, furnish it in 
considerable quantity. Wheat and barley do 
not^seem to need it so much as corn. Hence 
artificial manures should be applied to these 
crops rather than to corn. Put the barn yard 
manure bn the corn land, either on the grass the 
previous year, or directly to the crop, as most 
convenient. Then, if artificial manures are 
needed, apply them to the following barley crop, 
with a little more on the wheat. This will give 
as good a crop of corn, barley and wheat, and 
the clover sown with the wheat will get the 
benefit of what remains in the soil. I should 
expect as heavy clover as could grow. My 
young clover, where I applied superphosphate 
and Lawes’ wheat manure to the wheat last fall, 
is a splendid color, and promises a great growth. 
And in renovating a farm, the first aim should 
be to get good crops of clover. Make sure of 
the clover, and you are sure of every other crop. 
“ You have great confidence in artificial ma¬ 
nures ? ” Yes, provided they are good and can 
be obtained at reasonable rates. But I have still 
greater cbufidejice in thorough tillage. Or, per¬ 
haps, it would be better to ’Say that both should 
go together to get the best results. And make 
and use all the barn yard manure you can in ad¬ 
dition—and be sure to make it as rich as you 
can by feeding the animals well, and preserving 
the manure from leaching. There is fixr greater 
loss from leaching than from evaporation. 
Many farmers let half the value of their manure 
run into the nearest ditch. If the barn yard is 
properly constructed, the buildings spouted, and 
you have the requisite number of open sheds 
for the stock, and then keep the yard well lit¬ 
tered, there is no danger of loss either from 
leaching or evaporation. 
Some time ago I read in an English paper an 
anecdote of a President of a County Agricul¬ 
tural Society. “ At the last Annual Meeting,” 
said he, “you awarded me a white hat for the 
du'tiest barn yard in the county. I have worn 
it a year, but I think Mr. Blank’s yard is now 
