“ No ; but if I had no vegetables of any kind for 
them I should not hesitate to do so. I think a meal of 
it about twice a week would do them lots of good. 
The gist of the matter is just this : In summer a sow 
that is running on grass, and fed some grain, of 
course, gets just the necessary material to make lots 
of good, rich milk, and naturally her pigs thrive—are 
healthy, smooth, and grow rapidly. In winter she 
must have some sort of succulent food to take the 
place of grass. Vegetables of almost any kind cooked 
and mixed with skim-milk will fill the bill exactly, 
and her pigs will do quite as well as those raised in 
summer, provided they have warm, dry pens. A sow 
that is fed on corn and water alone cannot 
raise strong, healthy pigs, and no sensible 
man would expect it of her. 
Christian County, Ill. FRED. GRUNDY. 
arranged to have lots of pigs ready about those dates, 
as by so doing I could increase the whole number 
turned off in a year without increasing the number of 
pens and sheds necessary to raise them.” 
Cold Weather Food and Care. 
“ What had you calculated to feed if the corn crop 
had entirely failed last year, as seemed likely ? ” 
“Wheat. I did feed considerable as it was. And 
then I bought 30 bushels that was slightly musty and 
cooked it as fed, and never had hogs grow or fatten 
faster. I raised a fair crop of good corn, and it was a 
cheaper food than wheat or I should have fed the lat- 
fall into the milk from the cow. It is a good move to 
prevent the use of milk from cows that are excited 
from any cause, as such milk is not fit for babies.” 
“ What breed are your cows and what are the rules 
about tuberculosis and other diseases ?” 
“We will take that up next.” 
(To be Continued ) 
PIGS IN QUARTERLY INSTALLMENTS. 
FORK SALES SIX TIMES A YEAR. 
On .January 20, 1892, hogs were quoted in the Chi¬ 
cago market at 84.45 to $4.55 per 100 pounds. On 
February 7, 1893, they were quoted at $7 65 to £8 35, 
and but few good ones were to be had at 
even that price. At the former period the 
great majority of farmers in the West were 
selling off thfir pigs as fast as theycouli 
get rid of them, and breeding but very few 
sows. At the latter period they were buy¬ 
ing everything in the shape of a pig, and 
breeding every sow they could get posses- / 
sion of. At the time when everybody was j 
in a sweat to get rid of his pigs, and breed- j 
ing only two or three sows, a few—here j 
and there one—whose financial foresight / 
was sharp enough to penetrate a short dis- f 
tanee into the future, did just exactly the 
reverse of what everybody else was doing, 
and in due time reaped a silver harvest. A 
very few more, who had been wise enough 
to change from the popular practice of 
breeding for an annual crop of pigs to 
the more sensible one of a quarterly crop 
were also “in the swim.” These chaps \t5.. 
were delighted beyond measure to see the 
men who had previously sneered at and 
belittled their theories and practices almost 
falling over each other in their wild rush 
to adopt them. But still there is a great 
army of slowpokes and immovables who 
firmly believe that a spring-farrowed pig 
is the only one there is any profit in, and 
that it is the height of foolishness to attempt 
to raise pigs at any other time of the year. 
Let’s see what one of the advocates of 
the new method says about it. 
“You seem to have been ‘ in the swim’ 
since the price of hogs went soaring, Mr. P.” 
“ Well, yes, I have been hovering on the borders of 
the ‘ push,’ so to speak.” 
“ Have you accumulated much bullion since the 
boom began ? ” 
“ A little. My bank account has expanded to some 
extent, and I feel rather like a morning star.” 
A FARMER’S FRIEND TURNED FOE. 
\ We have received the following communi- 
\ cations regarding a beetle which is ordina- 
\ rily not only harmless but beneficial: 
\ I mail The Rural herewith a small box 
\ containing beetles found eatiDg beet tops. 
\ What is their name and how can I destroy 
.Y \ them? JAMES iiolloway. 
I Glen Cove, N. Y. 
When I first found long, striped beetles in 
• ‘ | my potato patch, I thought I would make 
fWW: I short work of them by applying Paris- 
green thoroughly on a couple of rows on 
- >' # the Q orth side of the patch ; then I drove all 
fff- j the bugs over on these rows. The next 
'■■’■■.I morning I went out with the expectation of 
jjjf ■§ finding them dead by thousands, but, to my 
f utter surprise, there was not one dead or 
alive to be found—they had all found their 
way back to the other part of the patch. I 
learned by this little experiment that they 
would not eat Paris green at all, 50 I 
thought if it would keep then- from eating 
the potatoes I would dose them with a view 
of driving them off entirely. This it did, 
but my object now is to get hold of some 
poison they will eat the same as the Colorad o 
beetle eats Paris green. These can be driven 
about the patch with brush switches like turkeys, but 
I want something that will turn their hee.s up and 
for this purpose I have in the last few days tried a 
spray of arsenic and another of nux vomica, with the 
same results as in case of Paris-green—they s mply 
left it all severely alone. n. UNGER. 
Germantown, Ohio. 
The second note partially answers the first. The 
insect in question is the Striped Blister Beetle, which 
is sometimes called the old-fashioned Potato Beetle. 
It was known as the Potato Beetle before the advent 
of the well-known Colorado Beetle. It is a friend to 
the farmer in its earlier stages, feeding upon 
the eggs of grasshoppers while in its larval 
stages, and thus keeping these destructive 
pests in check. It is only in the adult 
stage, and when it is more than ordinarily 
plentiful that it attacks vegetation destruc¬ 
tively. It is also more plentiful in the 
South, rarely getting so far north as this 
latitude in numbers sufficient to attract 
•>-r—much attention. 
The full-grown beetle is a slender-bodied 
insect, with rather long legs, black, with a 
varying number of yellowish stripes run¬ 
ning lengthwise of the body. It is from 
one-half to three-quarters of an inch in 
- ,, length. There are several different varie- 
ties, varying in color, some of them brown 
Jand black, but closely allied in habi s. 
They are all somewhat similar to the 
Spanish fly of the druggists, and are said to 
be equally efficacious in raising a blister, 
and are quite as poisonous when taken in¬ 
ternally as their imported cousins. They 
generally go in good-sized flocks and feed 
voraciously upon various vegetables, pota¬ 
toesbeing one of the principal ones. Unlike 
the Colorado beetle, they take to flight readily when 
disturbed. Unlike their more numerous and destructive 
successors also, their eggs are deposited in masses of 
100 or more, just beneath the surface of the soil. 
These hatch in about 10 days, and the larvae burrow 
through the soil in search of their favorite food, the 
eggs of grasshoppers. The number of the. future 
beetles depends somewhat upon their success in this 
search, but thoie which find abundant food go through 
several changes, and finally emerge as full-grown 
beetles. Two broods are produced annually in the 
South, but probably but one at the North. 
As for the remedies, our friend, Mr. Unger, gives an 
account of his trials of several. Prof. Weed says: 
“It is sometimes stated that these insects are not 
A Spavined Bicycle! What Cure? Fig. 199. 
ter all through the season. To get the full benefit of 
wheat, however, it must be cracked or cooked. Fed 
whole, or only half cooked much of it passes through 
undigested.” 
“ Do you experience any more difficulty in raising 
pigs farrowed in winter than in summer ? ” 
“ None to speak of. There is some difference in the 
management, of course. The summer pigs have 
clover and need only corn in addition, but the fall 
and winter pigs must have vegetables and a variety 
of grain. Potatoes, beets, turnips, artichokes, pump¬ 
kins, etc., cooked with a mixture of ground oats and 
How He Got Started the New Way. 
“ Like you hadn’t been caught napping ? ” 
“ Exactly. When everybody was rushing out of 
the swine breeding and feeding business, I thought it 
was a right good time to stay in, and, as I 
don’t keep all my eggs in one basket, I was t _ 
fixed to do 60 . When hogs were selling so 
low down that there was no profit in them, 
and appearances indicated a complete fail¬ 
ure of the corn crop, I had on hand 26 shoats, 
four sows almost due to farrow, and was 
breeding four more. I had dropped the old 
practice of breeding for spring pigs only. 
It was too much like putting all my eggs in 
one basket. Instead of having an annual 
crop of porkers to sell, I much prefer to 
have a quarterly crop.” V • 
“Then you arrange to have your pigs 0 ■ 
farrowed in quarterly installments, as it 
were. Why do you think that plan is better \ 
than raising an annual crop, like almost j 
everybody has done for ages ? ” j 
“ Well, in the first place, only five or six 
breeding pens are needed for my farrowing 
1 _ _ _ & 
sows, instead of 10 or 15. Second, I have a 
smaller number of young pigs at one time 
to look after, and consequently can give 
them better care. Third, if anything should 
happen to one lot of pigs and I should lose 
them, I’m not bankrupted, because another 
lot is following close after. Fourth, if the market 
should be a little off just when a lot are ready, they 
can be held a few weeks without loss and without 
inconvenience. Fifth, my hogs are marketed five or six 
times in the year instead of only once or twice, and my 
income and expenses are moie evenly distributed.” 
“ What induced you to change from the old practice 
to this new one ? ” 
“ Why, I saw that the new methods of summer 
slaughtering and packing adopted by the leading 
establishments would create a demand for hogs 
throughout the whole year instead of in autumn and 
winter only, and so I prepared to supply that demand. 
At first I bred for December and June, but as the mar¬ 
ket was quite as good in March and September, I 
/W4' /V- 
Plenty of Time for Reflection Here. Fig. 200. 
corn, or bran and middlings, with skim-milk, if we 
have it, make a prime food. It keeps sows and pigs 
in about the same condition, physically, as grass, and 
they do quite as well on it as on good pasture with 
grain. All that winter pigs need are warm, dry quar¬ 
ters and a variety of food. They can’t be profitably 
raised in an open yard with a steaming pile of 
manure or half-frozen mud for a bed, and only corn 
for food. They must have sensible care to do well. 
If you want to raise a lot of scrubby, humped-up 
pigs, with a hoarse wheeze and a chronic squeal, 
give them a manure pile to sleep on and feed corn 
exclusively.” 
“ Have you ever fed chopped and steamed clover 
hay to winter pigs ? ” 
