1875 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
95 
mine now is, of 46°, they would reduce (4 x 212°—848 
+ 46° =894° -t-5=178i°) the water to a temperature of 
1781°. In point of fact, however, the Deacon carries 
his water from the kettle to the scalding barrel, 
and on a cold day each pail of water, as it was poured 
into the barrel, would lose considerable heat, and 
it is not probable that the water is anything like as 
hot as the above calculation would indicate. None 
of the books I have consulted, throw any light on 
the point. Morton’s Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, 
says: “ The pig should be scalded on a board or 
cratch, by having the water thrown over it; or it 
may be scalded in a tub, if care is taken not to 
par-boil it, which is wrong, but only sufficient to 
cause the hair to come freely off.” This is all very 
well, but what is “ just sufficient ? ” Stephens, in 
his Book of the Farm, says, “pigs should be 
dressed,” but does not say how. Loudon’s En- 
clopaedia of Agriculture, says that in some coun¬ 
ties of England the hair is burnt off, but does not 
say a word about scalding. The Farmer’s Dic¬ 
tionary, a Compendium of Practical Farming, chiefly 
from Rham, Loudon, Low, and Touatt, and the 
most eminent American authors,” published by 
Harper Brothers, says: “The common method of 
dressing hogs in the United States, is to scald the 
carcass by immersion into a hogshead of water 
heated by hot stones, and rub off the bristles and 
scrape the skin by knives ; the chine, head, and 
feet are also taken off.” Timer’s “Principles of 
Agriculture,” certainly a very able work, contains 
nothing to the point; neither does Boussingault’s 
“ Rural Economy,” nor Johnson’s “Farmer’s En- 
clopsedia,” nor Fox’s “American Text Book of 
Agriculture,” nor Kemp’s “Agricultural Physi¬ 
ology.” After much search among the books and 
papers, I thought I had found it in an interesting 
article written by Charles Cist, of Cincinnati, “ On 
the Hog and its Products.” He tells how they 
dress hogs in the large establishments of that city, 
“at the rate of three to the minute,” going into all 
the details. The scalding troughs are of a thou¬ 
sand gallons capacity, and are heated with steam, 
but he, like all the rest, most provokingly omits to 
say at what temperature they keep the water for 
scalding the hogs. 
And so, when we were killing the hogs, I got a 
thermometer, and without saying anything, waited 
till the butcher pronounced the water just right. 
He is a very skillful and intelligent man, and got a 
good scald in every case, judging of the tempera¬ 
ture of the water by his hand. I put in the ther- 
momter, and after stirring up the water and keep¬ 
ing the thermometer immersed for a minute or 
two, I found the temperature of the water to be 
152°, or 60° below the boiling point. After the 
hog had been taken out, the temperature was 147°. 
We tested several times, and found that this ex¬ 
perienced butcher got the temperature within a 
degree or two of 150°, before the hog was put in. 
A correspondent at Snow Hill, Ind., writes: “It 
is stated in the Scientific Record of Harper’s Maga¬ 
zine, that Lawes and Gilbert’s experiments show 
that Indian corn meal alone, is a defective diet for 
fattening hogs, and it is recommended to mix with 
it food rich in mineral and nitrogenous matters. 
Will you please tell us in Walks and Talks, what 
food to use and the proper proportions to mix with 
the meal, specifying by name the food or foods 
rich in mineral matter and nitrogen ? ” “Good,” 
said the Deacon, “ he hits you there. I have often 
been vexed at you for telling a farmer that ‘ foods 
rich in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, make rich ma¬ 
nure, ’ as though that was telling us anything. You 
should specify the foods by name. Then you often 
say that fattening pigs require food ‘ rich in availab I e 
carbonaceous matter,’ as though that was giving use¬ 
ful information.”—“ Stop scoldiug, Deacon,” I re¬ 
plied, “ and let us see if there is any evidence that 
corn meal alone is a defective diet for fattening hogs. 
In the first place, there are say 15,000,000 hogs fatten¬ 
ed in the United States every year, and I suppose 
at least 10,000,000 are fattened on com alone. This 
fact would lead us to ask for very positive proof, 
before we decide that corn is a defective diet for 
fattening hogs. The single experiment referred 
to, is by no means conclusive. The facts are these. 
The pen of three pigs having corn meal alone, ate 
comparatively little food, and gained comparatively 
little. They ate 451 lbs. Indian meal each pig, per 
week, and gained 9.21 lbs. each per week. The 
three pigs having bran and lentil meal alone, ate 63 
lbs. per week, and gained 12.62 lbs. The three 
pigs which were given 14 lbs. of Indian meal each, 
per week, and were allowed in addition, all the bran 
and lentil meal they would eat, ate in all 66 lbs. 
each per week, and gained 14 lbs. The pen of 
three pigs which were given 14 lbs. of bran each, 
per week, and were allowed all the corn meal they 
would eat in addition, ate 581 lbs of the two foods, 
and gained 12.42 lbs. The pen of three pigs which 
were given 14 lbs. of bran, and 14 lbs. of bean and 
lentil meal each, per week, and all the corn meal 
they would eat besides, ate 644 lbs., and gained 
14.46 lbs. This was the largest gain of the series.” 
Taking the above facts as they stand, [Full 
details of these experiments will be found in 
“Harris on the Pig,” page 122. Ed.], it is clear 
that if we wish a pig to fatten rapidly, our great 
aim must be to induce him to eat as much food 
as possible. It does not seem to make much differ¬ 
ence whether the food is corn meal, barley meal, or 
bran and lentil meal, (say pea-meal), and we may 
reasonably presume the same is true of wheat, oat6, 
or rye meal. H they will eat enough and digest it, 
they will gain rapidly. More seems to depend on 
the pig than on the food. 
Now it so happened that two of the pigs in the 
pen of three which had Indian meal alone, had 
large swellings on the side of their necks. The 
hogs seem to have been a quarrelsome set, and it 
is not impossible that these swellings were the 
result of a vigorous scratch from the teeth of some 
of their neighbors, before or after they were shut 
up to fatten. In my own large herd of pigs, I find 
large swellings from this cause by no means un¬ 
common. I lance them and they soon get well. 
Still, it is a fact that these swellings were found on 
two of the pigs having corn meal alone, and I 
suppose on none of the others. And it may be that 
the food was the cause of it, and that Indian meal 
alone is a defective diet. Still, I do not think so. 
There is no positive proof. The two pigs which 
had the swellings gained much more than the pig 
in the same pen, which was not affected. For 
twelve days before the experiment commenced, all 
the pigs had the same food. During these twelve 
days, one of the pigs which afterwards had the 
swellings, gained 28 lbs., and the other one 20 lbs. ; 
while the other pig gained only 5 lbs. After these 
three pigs were shut up and fed Indian meal alone, 
the first of the three pigs gained in 8 weeks 96 lbs., 
and the other 71 lbs., while the one not affected 
with swellings, gained only 54 lbs. This last pig 
probably ate comparatively little, and consequently 
gained little. It was not defective food, but defec¬ 
tive appetite. 
In the pen having bean and lentil meal, and bran, 
and all the Indian meal they would eat in addition, 
one of the pigs gained 142 lbs. in 56 days. And 
one of the pigs in the pen which had 2 lbs. of bran 
each per day, and all the corn meal they would eat, 
gained in the 56 days, 143 lbs. This was the 
largest gain of any pig in the series. 
And so, if my correspondent thinks Indian meal 
a defective diet, he can give his pigs two pounds 
each of bran per day, in addition to all the corn 
meal they will eat. 
It must be understood that we are talking about 
pigs shut up to fatten. And my own opinion is 
that Indian corn is not a defective food. For store 
hogs, or young pigs five or six months old, that we 
wish to grow rather than fatten, I would give more 
bran (or clover), and less com meal. Corn is, I think, 
the most fattening of all cereals, and is too rich 
for growing pigs. In the winter we have no better 
food than bran to mix with the com meal. And if 
we could give a few mangels or other roots, so 
much the better. They are easily digested and 
keep the pigs healthy. In the summer green 
clover will be the best addition to the com meal. 
I am feeding my own herd of breeding sows on 
steamed clover hay, cut about half an inch long. | 
We mix a few sliced turnips or mangels with it, 
and steam it altogether, sprinkling a little fine 
middlings or corn meal on it in the troughs, before 
letting out the pigs. If the clover hay is cut early 
and nicely cured, it is as good as bran, and in my 
case a good deal cheaper. At any rate, it lessens 
my meal bill. 
Some Cheap Fences. 
Several correspondents have kindly sent us de¬ 
scriptions and sketches of cheap and convenient 
fences, which we here illustrate. “J. M. S.,” of 
St. Joseph, Mo., sends a description of a light 
portable fence, shown 
at fig. 1, as follows: An 
oak log 16 feet long is 
sawn into strips 1* inch 
thick, by 2 inches wide. 
These strips are cut into 
an equal number of 
pieces 5 and 3 feet 
long respectively. The 
longer pieces are the 
posts, and the shorter 
ones the braces. The 
posts are driven into 
the ground about one 
foot. A short stake is 
driven into the ground, 
two feet from the 
bottom of the post, 
a tenpenny nail, partly 
Fig.l.— “j. M. S.’S” FENCE, 
The brace is nailed with 
driven in, so that it can be easily driven back 
and withdrawn, to the post and the brace. The 
posts may be made to lean backwards if thought 
desirable. This will be an improvement to the 
fence, if the pickets are only slightly attached to 
the wires. The posts are bored with three holes, 
so that three light fence wires may be run through 
them. For a light garden fence, corn-stalks strip- 
Fig. 2.— FENCE FROM VIRGINIA. 
ped of their leaves, or brush, or lath, may be woven 
in the wires. If pickets are used, they may be 
fastened to the wires with light staples, or in any 
other manner that may suggest itself. Fig. 2, 
represents a portable fence sent us by “ a Virgini¬ 
an.” It consists of the usual posts and rails, but 
instead of morticing the posts, they are simply 
bored to admit a fence wire. A piece of the wire is 
passed through the holes, forming a loop on one 
side, into which one end of the rail is placed, and 
at the other side of the post, the wire is twisted 
around the end of the rail of the next panel. 
This is shown in the illustration. Boards may be 
used in place of rails, and the fence will be much 
stronger than if the boards had been nailed on. 
Figure 3 is a movable fence described by “D. O. 
