846 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 23 
The Stock, Where and How They Live. 
“ But let’s go and look at the stock. This is the old 
house, No. 1, we call it. Jt was built originally for a 
poultry house, but I don’t want any poultry around 
me, so I turned it into a hog bouse. It faces the south, 
the north wa 1 being stone. Most of t’ e breeders are 
in this house. The width is 16 feet, the pens being 
6 x 12. The floor is of flag stones, and there is a drain 
from each pen to a cesspool. The pens a r e cleaned 
out every morning, and are kept sprinkled with plaster 
and a very little Sanitas for disinfecting. Nothing 
nasty about these pens is there ? ” 
“1 should say not. They are cleaner and smell 
sweeter than some kitchens in which I have been.” 
“ Do you notice that guard just above the floor a 
few inches from the sides of the pens. That gives the 
pigs a chance to roll under, so that the sows will not 
lie on and crush them. It saves many dollars every 
year. As you see, we can raise the doors opening into 
the yards, from the alley. The yards are all paved or 
cemented. This device for water is an excellent thing, 
and has never yet frozen. It consists of a large cask, 
covered with coal tar, and sunk partially in the 
ground, the upper part being boxed in. This forms a 
dead-air space, and by keeping the lid closed we have 
water always free from ice.” 
“ Do you feed the hogs on water ? I don’t see much 
else here but a little salt.” 
“ Mostly on water. We mix some middlings with 
it to make a mush, and a little oil nreal, and feed 
three times a day for those in the pens. We use what 
milk we have, and try to feed each animal what it 
will eat up clean. We feed little corn. The brood 
sows running out are fed twice a day, and we mix 
some buckwheat middlings in their feed. You notice 
the trough we use. This is the Willswood trough. It 
is made of cast iron, in the form of a half circle with 
four compartments. It is bolted to the partition, the 
feed being poured in through a chute, and going into 
all the compartments equally. The largest hog can 
eat from it, and there is no crowding. The trough 
may be filled with water and this be allowed to freeze 
solid without injury. It is practically indestructible.” 
This trough is illustrated at Fig. 
271, and one in the form of a 
circle for outside fefding, and 
surrounded with hogs is shown 
at Fig. 272. 
In going to house No. 2, we 
passed through a yard where 11 
brood sows are running at liber¬ 
ty. Several of them are imported 
animals, and most of them are 
winners of numerous prizes. 
They have been running on past¬ 
ure, being fed but twice a day. 
They were in excellent order. 
Mr. Seward says that they graze 
just about like cattle. The next 
house is a new one, hardly yet 
completed. It is different from 
the other. It extends no th and 
south with pens on each side of 
a central four-foot alley. There 
are also yards on each side of the 
house, the sun shining into those 
on one side in the forenoon, and 
into the others in the afternoon. 
This house is 67 x 22 feet and 
is floored with concrete made of 
Portland cement. Each pen is 
nine feet long, divided into an 
eating and a sleeping compart¬ 
ment, the latter being six feet 
and the former seven feet wide. 
The partitions are nearly breast 
door opened and closed from the 
blocky boar ; and Lord Chumbly, a few days younger, 
sire Simplex, dam Waiting Maid. These have been 
over only since November 9, end had hardly got off 
their sea legs at the time of my visit. 
Another fine boar is Imported Collegian, bred by 
Russell Swanwick, England, and said to be the best 
boar offered at the sale of his herd. Some fine sows 
arenDorcas, imported Winchester Beauty, Winchester 
Belle, Romp, Madam Noisy, a short haired sow with a 
litter of five fine pigs, Miss Maud and Heather II. 
Prosperine was bred at Willswood, and is a cross of 
English blood upon one of the noted American strains. 
The results were very satisfactory. She had farrowed 
a litter of eight fine pigs, of which five were left. 
Faith, Hope and Charity were three fine young sows 
all bred at Willswood, sired by Lorenzo. A large 
number of fine young boars and sows were in the pens, 
The Willswood Trough. Fig. 271. 
some for sale, and others of the choicest reserved for 
breeding purposes. 
“ Have you ever fed ensilage to your hogs ? ” I asked. 
“ No ; I pasture them in summer and feed turnips, 
and all sorts of green stuff, the refuse of the garden, 
etc. Before you go, I want to show you some hogs 
out here in the orchard.” 
We found three hogs which would be considered 
good almost anywhere. 
“ What do you think of them ? ” asked Mr. S. 
“ They look to me like pretty fair specimens, pos¬ 
sibly a little small. What ails them anyway ? ” 
“ They are some of our culls. We didn’t consider 
them good enough to breed from, and consequently 
■Bfcslittl 
L 
-— 
-/■2E 
A Center of Attraction—The Willswood Trough. Fig. 272. 
high. A drop 
alley by means 
of a rope and pulley leads from each eating room into 
the yard outside. Another door from the sleeping 
apartment leads into the alley, so that any animal 
may be transferred from one pen to another through 
the alley when desired. When shipping pigs, also, the 
crate may be placed in front of the door, the pig driven 
in, nailed up, and the crate loaded in the wagon with¬ 
out trouble. The partitions between the eating and 
sleeping compartments are strengthened by extend¬ 
ing the top board to the outside where it is securely 
nailed. The north end of the building is made of 
stone, but the rest is covered with a single thickness 
of patent siding. The windows are on pivots for 
ventilating purposes. 
Prominent in this house is the boar imported Lorenzo, 
24684, bred by James Lawrence, England, and far¬ 
rowed at Willswood, July 22, 1889. He is the winner 
of a large number of prizes. He was sired by Little- 
worth, 22431, dam Heather, 21561, both including blood 
of many noted English strains. 
Among recent importations, are President, farrowed, 
January 24, 1893, sire Lord Curzon, 2012, B. B. H. B., 
dam Paragon Pet, 3205, B. B. H. B., a very black, 
not good enough to sell for breeders, so we put them 
out here to fatten to kill. I wanted you to see some of 
the animals that we sort out.” 
Yet these “ culls ” are better hogs, I will guarantee, 
than are found on the majority of American farms. 
Fig. 270 represents four of the breeding sows at 
Willswood. This engraving is from a photograph, and 
is a pretty good representation of the animals con¬ 
sidering the fact that hogs are difficult subjects to 
photograph. Faith was incautious enough to move 
her head slightly when the exposure was made, and 
the artist in endeavoring to remedy the defect has 
hardly done her justice. The background of the group 
is a section of house No. 1, showing two of the lift 
doors by which the hogs are admitted to the yards. 
Fig. 272 represents a sort of a family party—with 
their heads together, as it were—around one of the 
Willswood circular troughs. We can’t judge from 
their faces as to their feelings, but it is plainly evident 
that some great attraction holds them to the spot. 
The background is the stone barn, the open door lead¬ 
ing to the stables where are the Guernsey herd of 
which mention will be made at another time. A shed 
is to be built against the fence,represented, for a man¬ 
ure shelter. f. h. v. 
RANDOM NOTES ON FARM FAILURES.—III. 
The old farmer leaned against the fence, and look¬ 
ing down on the fields of ripened corn half hidden in 
the October haze, said : “ Well, autumn is here again, 
and it will soon be winter. Last spring I began my 
farm work with about the same high hopes that I have 
many a spring before, and there is the result of my 
season’s labors. Floods at planting time and drought 
in summer have beaten my best efforts, and I shall 
gather less than half a crop. It makes a man of my 
age feel sort o’ tired to be balked in this manner. He 
feels rather gloomy and dejected, and is somewhat 
inclined to blame Providence for ill success. When I 
was young a failure like this used to make me all the 
keener to try it again, but age has cooled my ardor. 
But, after all, bitter thoughts and lamentations don’t 
do any good. We on^y make ourselves and all about 
us miserable with our plaints. It is not in human 
power to foresee or prevent such disaste s as these, 
and the sooner we get that fact drilled into our minds 
the better it will be for us. Now there’s S over there. 
When the fields were flooded with rain at corn plant¬ 
ing time last spring he appeared to be as happy as a 
lark. ‘If we could stop this rain by cussing or grumb¬ 
ling,’ said he, ‘I’d join you in a hurry, and whoop ’er 
up lively. But as we can’t, we'd just better make the 
best of it!’ He’s a queer stick. Well, there’s one con¬ 
solation ; another spring will be along in a few months 
and we can try it again. We can set our mark high 
and try our best to reach it.” 
Last winter and spring a tenant covered five acres 
of land with good stable manure, with the intention, 
as he expressed it, of raising some Columbian corn—a 
crop such as would astonish the natives. The land 
was flooded with rains until May was almost gone, 
and then the drought set in. As soon as the land was 
dry enough he turned the manure under and planted 
the corn. He harrowed and cultivated full many a 
time and oft, and hoped for showers which came not. 
A few days ago he husked it and the yield was 2<> 
bushels per acre of third-rate corn. To-day he plowed 
a portion of the land and to his astonishment found 
the manure he applied last spring 
in much the same condition as 
when turned under. It had de¬ 
cayed so little that the crop wjs 
injured rather than benefited by 
it. But it is there, and next year’s 
crop will find it and use it. Had 
his lease expired with this year, 
all the labor of hauling and 
spreading the manure would 
have been lost to him. 
A few days ago I accompanied 
a veterinary surgeon to see a fine 
mare that had been snagged 
badly inside the thigh by a piece 
of board. The board had been 
broken off the fence and care¬ 
lessly left where it fell. While 
playing about the yard the mare 
had stepped on one end of it and 
the other flew up with the result 
above stated. On arrival, we 
j found the mare had just died 
from blood poisoning. The vet. 
j cut open the thigh and explained 
to the owner the cause of death. 
5 “It is too bad,” said he; “she 
J was such a fine animal. Will it 
hurt two mares in foal to draw 
her out to the hog pasture 
yonder ?” he asked. On being 
assured that it would not, he continued : “ I guess 
I’ll haul her out there and slash her up some and let 
the hogs eat her. I’m a little short of feed anyway !” 
Will his hogs have the “cholera”? What sort of 
pork will such feed make ? 
How many people there are who think butter mak¬ 
ing, poultry raising, and fruit growing too small a 
business for them to dabble in. A young farmer’s 
wife asked him to take three dozen eggs to town with 
him. 
“Me carry three dozen eggs to town !” said he, con¬ 
temptuously. “Not much!” 
“Why, they’re worth 15 cents a dozen,” said she. 
“Ha, ba ! 45 cents’ worth!” he laughed. “I’m not 
running a five cent farm, girl! What do you take me 
for ?” And he drove away. 
“ I’ll get even with him soon,” she murmured, and 
she sent the eggs up by an accommodating neighbor. 
A few days afterward he said he was going to town 
again, and asked if she’d like to accompany him. 
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “I want to get a new hat for 
Sundays. The spring styles are in now, and I must 
have one to look like anybody.” 
She called him into the millinery shop to look at the 
one she had selected. 
