t 889. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
623 
We use a Purington Steamer, cook thor¬ 
oughly two barrels of meal, containing 
about four bushels each, at a time. This is 
fed while warm, as warm feed is eaten with 
a much greater relish during the cold days 
of winter, than cold. 
A good full feed twice a day keeps 
shouts in a good thriving condition ; but 
fattening hogs should be fed oftener and 
get some dry feed to make their flesh more 
solid. 
Ten or 13 brood sows or 30 or 40 shouts 
will pay for all the labor and expense of 
cooking feed, and we think that a given 
quantity of cooked feed will give better re¬ 
sults than twice the amount fed dry. 
Cooked feed keeps brood sows in the thrif¬ 
tiest condition, loose and healthy. 
After feeding cooked feed one month to 
our sows and shouts—in all numbering about 
90—we considered they were enough better, 
than when fed on dry feed for the same 
time, to pay for the grinder and steamer, 
and the practice is paying us now as well 
as it did the first month. 
Ames, Iowa. 
FROM PAUL LAND MANN. 
Cooked feed paid me well in the case of 
young hogs. I have never seen pigs grow 
faster than mine did on cooked pumpkins, 
potatoes mixed with bran, shorts or ground 
feed of any description. I honestly would 
not use any dry feed for my young stock 
during our long winters, nor would I use 
cold water. Cooked oats with potatoes or 
any roots make all my pigs feel happy in 
winter time. I do not use any warm food 
during the summer; but as soon as the 
ground is frozen I begin with warm slops. 
I save at least half of the feed in this way. 
I cook two barrels of mixed food in the 
morning and feed one in the morning and 
one in the evening as slop. The latter, if 
covered, will keep warm until evening. 1 
have 15 brood sows and 20 shouts. My 
brood sows do very well. I have no com¬ 
plaint to make with regard to their losing 
their litters as they would do if fed on raw 
feed when corn only is fed to them during 
the winter. 
Tyndall, Dakota. 
FROM X. A. TOWNSEND. 
1 have not had as long an experience as 
some in feeding cooked feed, yet I believe 
there is'no one branch of farming that pays 
so large a per cent, of profit as the steam 
ing of food for growing animals. Since 
commenced steaming food for hogs—about 
four years ago—I find I can make them as 
heavy when they are from seven to nine 
months old, as I formerly did when they 
were from 12 to IS months old, thereby mak¬ 
ing a saving of from 30 to 40 per cent, of the 
time of feeding, and lessening their liabili¬ 
ty to disease by the length of time saved in 
getting them to market, which is no small 
item here in the West where cholera, swine 
plague, worms and other diseases take our 
hogs oft' by the score. 
I have never had any practical experience 
in cooking feed except for hogs; but my 
opinion is that it will pay as well for milch 
cows and calves as it will for hogs. I have 
never had any experience in cooking fodder 
except steaming a barrel of clover or Timo¬ 
thy as a relish or appetizer, which I believe 
answers the purpose of preventing disease 
better than anything in the way of medi¬ 
cines or cholera cures that I have ever tried, 
and I believe the feeding value of any kind 
of grain is largely increased by cooking, 
and certain kinds of vegetables that are al¬ 
most worthless as food for hogs in their 
raw state, become excellent food when cook¬ 
ed, and make .a decidedly healthier food 
than all one kind of feed fed raw. 
1 have never made any careful experi¬ 
ments to show the profits from cooking 
hog feed, but at one time 1 kept an account 
with my pigs to see whether it was profita¬ 
ble to raise them or not, and the results 
were very satisfactory. 1 had 44 pigs far¬ 
rowed in May and .Tune, which I sold on the 
first of November, that averaged 2tM pounds 
each and which were raised at a cost of a 
fraction over It, cent per pound. I bought 
my feed at the mill all ground; fed some 
bran and shorts, and also corn and oats 
ground together. 1 made a thin slop of 
some, and a thick mush of the rest. 1 did 
not charge the pigs with the slop from the 
house or the pasture, as other stock were 
running in the same pasture. 1 think this 
a very good showing, for if we can, by cook¬ 
ing or any other method, reduce the cost of 
raising any animal until it will make a good 
profit on t he investment, it is just what we 
are all striving for—to get the largest 
amount of gain with the least possible cost. 
The reason why farmers do not feed more 
cooked feed than they do is because of the 
time taken to cook it in the old way—with 
kettles—and the liability of burning 
thereby nearly destroying its value. Unless 
one stays with it and stirs it constantly, it 
is very liable to burn, and the cost of the time 
it takes to cook the feed in this way over¬ 
balances the increased value of the food 
cooked; but by cooking with a proper 
steamer, this is all obviated, as it does its 
own stirring and one can cook as much or 
as little as he pleases with no danger of 
burning. 
I cook from one to three barrels at a time, 
the quantity depending on the amount of 
stock to be fed and the time of the year. I 
feed it slightly warm (not hot) three times a 
day. So far as my experience and observa¬ 
tion go, it will pay to cook feed where there 
are three or four cows and 10 to 15 hogs, as 
a person can cook their feed and still do his 
usual share of work in the field. I know 
quite a number of farmers in this county 
who have been cooking their feed (or a 
portion of it), for the past two years, who 
claim that they save at least one-third of 
the feed besides having healthier stock and 
getting them to market heavier than when 
they fed all their feed in a raw state, ft 
seems to me that the only quest ion to be de¬ 
cided is what portion of the food needs 
cooking, for all with whom I have ever 
talked on this subject, claim that it pays to 
cook certain portions of their feed in order 
to secure a healthful change and also to get 
the best results. 
Dallas Center, Iowa. 
FROM J. F. COULTAS. 
I have not used cooked feed for fattening 
purposes. I sell most of my hogs for 
breeding purposes, and have not had any¬ 
thing but culls to feed off. I use thesteam- 
er for cooking feed for brood sows. I use 
good bright clover hay cut with a feed-cut¬ 
ter. with either bran, shorts, corn-meal or 
ground rye and oats. 1 steam the hay and 
meal together, and find it a fine way to 
keep brood sows in a healthy condition 
through the winter. 
Winchester. Ill. 
FROM K. M. JENKINS. 
I have been handling hogs for 15 years, 
and my experience has always been that for 
young hogs especially, it pays to feed cooked 
feed. I have not tested the matter by 
weighing the pigs and feed, but 1 think any 
intelligent breeder can see the difference 
very quickly. 1 begin to cook in the fall 
as soon as cold weather comes on, and con¬ 
tinue to do so until the advent of warm 
weather and grass. And 1 always feed the 
stuff while it is warm. I think that the 
best feed consists of corn, oats and rye 
ground equal parts, mixed with bran, half 
and half. But for fattening purposes I 
simply cook the shelled corn, usiugthe cobs 
for fuel, and once a week 1 give a feed of 
cooked bran with some oil-cake—say four 
quarts of dry cake to a barrel of cooked 
feed, and 1 always salt all feed. In my 
judgment, no matter how little or how 
much stock a man may have, it always pays 
well to tix up for feeding judiciously and 
for cooking feed, thus saving everything 
and avoiding all waste. Very little feed 
will be needed to keep up animal heat, as 
the feed, being warm, does that. One should 
feed three times a day and always give 
warm drinking water or at least take the 
chill off it. 
Alexandria, Nebraska. 
FROM S. B. PIKE. 
It pays to cook feed. I do so for hogs, 
calves, and milch cows. I cook corn, oats, 
rye, barley, corn fodder, potatoes, and, in 
fact, all kinds of grains or roots. I find I 
can put on as much flesh with one bushel— 
32 quarts— of cooked corn as T can with 50 
quarts of raw corn. I also tested cooking 
for a single cow, and hav ing cooked four 
pounds of corn and oats ground together 
per day, got an increase of 16 per cent, 
in the milk, and of 19 per cent, in the cream 
or butter. The cow was fed and watered 
the same as usual in every way except that 
the grain was cooked. I also tested it on 
my driving horse, and found that he could 
do the same work on eight pounds of cooked 
corn and oats that he did on 12 pounds of 
raw, and he looked and felt better. I fed 
him the same number of pounds of hay in 
each case. For cooking I use a small feed 
steamer when I have to feed five hogs and 
upwards; and for a smaller number I cook 
sometimes on the stove, and sometimes 
with the steamer. I cook every day in 
summer as well as in winter, if I am feeding 
not less than one bushel per day, and if I 
am feeding less than that I cook every 
other day. 
I can make it pay me to cook for one 
single cow or hog. In such a case I would 
cook on the kitchen stove; but I would run 
the steamer at a profit in cooking feed for 
five cows, or five hogs or four horses. 
I claim that it pays me from 20 to 40 
per cent, to cook roots, the profit depending 
on the kinds of stock I am feeding. One 
bushel of steamed potatoes I value more 
highly than I do one bushel of raw corn for 
young pigs or calves. I used not to have 
time to cook; but according to my ex¬ 
perience during the last four years, if I have 
not the time, it would pay me to hire some 
one to do it for me for a lot of 20 or 25 hogs. 
I want my stock fed just at the same times 
each day. I usually feed night and morn¬ 
ing as regularly as it can be done. One of 
my neighbors put 52 pounds of flesh and fat 
on a 250-pounds hog in 30 days on cooked 
corn, and 30 pounds on one fed on raw corn. 
In all my experience I have not known a 
single farmer who makes a success of his 
business who does not own that it pays him 
to cook grain for his hogs if he has once tried 
it. In cooking with my steamer all that is 
needed is to put in four or five pails of wat¬ 
er and build the fire, and put the feed in¬ 
to the barrel or tank. 1 usually do it after 
feeding in the evening, audit is all ready 
to feed in the morning, and it pays me from 
20 to 33 per cent, to do it. 
Ingham County, Mich. 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE HOG. 
PORK RAISING IN THE SOUTH. 
HENRY STEWART. 
Great intelligence of hogs; fine opportunities 
Jor hogs in the South ; superiority of their 
meat; folly of buying Western pork in¬ 
stead of raising enough at home; life of a 
Southern hog ; a profitable experience in 
hog raising; a sensitive conscience; “pint 
ers" given by the Northern “ schoolmaster 
abroad ’* in the South. 
The man who thinks a hog is without intel¬ 
ligence makes a great mistake. Mr. Bcrghaus 
has given the readers of the Rural a good 
lesson in this respect. There is an air of 
thoughtfulness about his drawings, in a late 
Rural, which at once attracts the experi¬ 
enced pig breeder and feeder, and he truly rep¬ 
resents a typical animal of this ill-used and 
misrepresented race. In its exhibitions of in¬ 
stinct and intelligent actual reasoning the hog 
comes next to the horse, and for cuteness 
quite surpasses even that noble animal. The 
trouble with pigs most commonly is that their 
owners are themselves deficient in intelligence 
and do not give their pigs a chance. All the 
difficulties in rearing pigs and bringing them 
to market seem to me to be incident to the re¬ 
straints put upon them by their owners. For 
instance, when running at large on a range a 
sow' never kills her young pigs, and always 
provides her brood with a warm, dry, safe 
and healthful nest. I should have liked to 
have contributed some ‘’pork poin’s” to 
those interesting experiences given by several 
contributors in the Rural of August 7, in 
regard to the management of these animals in 
the South where the hog has a good deal of 
freedom and evinces intelligence of no mean 
order. But here, too, the hog has not a fair 
chance and is subjected to many drawbacks, in 
consequence of which he comes to undeserved 
grief and reproach. Ic is well known that the 
South buys most of its pork from the West 
w’bere the hogs are spoiled by too much corn 
feeding and run to unhealtbful and unwhole¬ 
some fat—unhealthful for the pig and un¬ 
wholesome and unprofitable for those who 
consume the meat, or rather grease. The com¬ 
mon Southern hog is usually of the razor back 
or slab-side variety. But the meat of these 
pigs is far better than that of the rotund, 
barrel-shaped Western hogs, without any 
head or neck to spsakof aud not enough mus¬ 
cle on their frames to carry arouud their load 
of fat. Southern farmers are now paying 13 
to 15 cents per pound for Western bacon, 
while the very best of pork can be produced 
for two or three cents per pound, or even less, 
in such favorable localities as the mountain 
region, in an average of years. The pigs here 
live in the woods winter as well as summer. 
They choose an open place for their nests in 
some sheltered place, where they gather 
leaves and brush into a broad heap elevated 
a foot or more above the ground, and there¬ 
fore dry and warm. They do not go into hol¬ 
low trees or caves where a man would put 
them, if he could, tor shelter; and in this they 
show more intelligence thau their owners, for 
this sort of nest would soou become filthy or 
muddy, and would not dry as the leaf-bed 
does after the heavy rains. In these nests a 
sow will rear from eight to 13 pigs successful¬ 
ly. Let me give a little of my experience 
gained in pursuit of useful knowledge and m 
some tests in the direction of the actual cost 
of making pork in the South. 
A sow and seven pigs were bought in the 
ear ly spring for seven dollars, aud were turn¬ 
ed into a wood lot. They were given the 
waste milk and butter-milk for which there 
was no other use. The young pigs w’ere given 
three bushels of corn, iu default of sufficient 
n ast to fatten them, and when slaughtered, 
made very nearly 800 pounds of pork, which 
was cured into bacon, aud sold for 10 to 12 
cents per pound; it could have been sold for 
15 cents, but my conscience forbade the exac- 
tiou of the full market price. The meat was 
of the class known as breakfast bacon, such 
A MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, DAIRY. See Page 624. Fig. 237. 
