450 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
Green Food for Swine. 
BY PROFESSOR S. K. THOMPSON, OP NEBRASKA. 
The long distance of the trans-Missouri States 
from market, makes it necessary to condense agri¬ 
cultural products as much as possible before ship¬ 
ment. The simple and bulky products, corn and 
grass, must be changed into beef and pork. This 
necessity is more clearly seen every year; but there 
are still too many farmers who sell their corn in¬ 
stead of feeding it. 
No one now attempts to bring cattle to maturity 
on corn alone, but the majority of farmers give 
their hogs nothing else. It is the usual practice to 
bring young cattle up to the age of one, two, orthree 
years, principally on hay and grass, and then to fin¬ 
ish the fattening by a few months of liberal corn 
feeding. Experience shows that it is nearly or 
quite as economical and profitable to feed green 
food to swine as to cattle. Green food is cheaper 
than grain. There is in this neighborhood a lot of 
sixty hogs that, since April, have not eaten any corn 
or other grain. Their entire living has been green 
food, and they are in good order, many of them fat 
enough for market. The whole amount of land oc¬ 
cupied was six acres, the food green rye, clover, 
and oats in succession. Another farmer who had 
for many years fed his hogs on dry corn, was 
induced to turn them out on grass. They did 
better on less than half the corn he was feeding 
them before they were turned out, and the ca¬ 
pacity of the pasture to sustain cattle was but little 
impaired. The hogs fed largely upon forage and 
weeds, which the other stock did not touch. 
Green food makes thriftier and larger hogs. 
Farmers who raise many pigs, and feed them ex¬ 
clusively on corn, know that some of the shotes 
will cease to grow at an early age, begin to lay 
on fat, and never reach the size of good, mer¬ 
chantable hogs. This tendency to fatten prema¬ 
turely, at the expense of bone growth, is not 
seeu to any great extent in grass fed hogs. A 
pig fed on bulky green food will develop a larger 
6tomach than one fed on concentrated food like 
corn; and when you come to fatten it, this en¬ 
larged capacity will enable him to eat and digest 
more corn, and thus fatten faster than the other, 
and be a more profitable hog to grow for market. 
Grass-fed hogs are healthier than those grain- 
fed. Every intelligent breeder knows the advan¬ 
tages of feeding green food to sows about to far¬ 
row. They have less difficulty with their pigs, are 
less liable to destroy them, will give more milk, 
and nurse them better. Grass-fed hogs are less 
liable to disease. The dreaded hog cholera is not 
much to be feared where hogs have the run of a 
good clover pasture. Undoubtedly, if exposed to 
contagion, they would take the disease, but they 
are not likely to develop it. For example, a far¬ 
mer had his hogs in a small pen, destitute of grass, 
with no water except a muddy pool, which soon 
was made as vile as possible by the hogs. After a 
while the hogs began to die in considerable num¬ 
bers, with symptoms resembling cholera. The 
owner was alarmed, took them out of this pen, 
turned them on a patch of green rye, and gave 
them water from a well. The disease was checked 
and the deaths ceased. 
How may green food be most cheaply provided ? 
This question presents some difficulties in the 
States west of the Missouri, which are not met 
with in the Eastern States ; yet experience has 
shown how all these difficulties may be overcome. 
It is sometimes claimed that the difficulty is greater 
in Nebraska than elsewhere in the West, because 
farms in that State are not usually fenced. But 
this is a superficial view. Since Nebraska farmers 
are not compelled to fence their neighbors’ stock 
out, they can better afford to fence their own in. 
But the expense which must be incurred to enclose 
all the hogs on an ordinary farm need not be very 
great. A movable fence, to cost not to exceed one 
hundred dollars, will be sufficient to accommodate 
from fifty to one hundred hogs. Seventy-two 
frames, costing about one dollar each, will enclose 
about two acres. The smaller the lot enclosed, 
and the larger the number of hogs, the oftener the 
fence will have to be moved. On the Agricultural 
College farm is a fence of this kind, which can be 
taken down, moved, and put up in less than half a 
day by the labor of two men and a team. In 
places where the fields are enclosed, it would be 
necessary to provide the interior fences only. 
Rye is the crop best adapted to this purpose, in 
the region west of the Missouri. This should be 
sown early in the fall, on well prepared soil, and 
if the growing season continues late in the fall, so 
that the rye is likely to joint, it must be fed down 
closely. The best condition for it to go into winter, 
is when it covers the ground with a thick mat of 
low leaves with but little tendency to shoot. Rye 
in this condition is fit to turn on as soon as growth 
begins in spring. The amount of feed which two 
acres of such rye will furnish, is surprising. If not 
fed down too close, and the stock be turned off 
about the middle of May or the first of June, the 
rye will still make a fair crop. Hogs are some¬ 
times left on the rye until it fills, when they will 
pull it down and eat the heads ; but this practice 
is not commended. There is a time after the rye 
is a foot high until it is in milk, that hogs do not 
eat it well. A better plan is to have a field of 
clover or of clover and timothy or orchard grass, 
ready for the pigs when the rye is too large to be 
longer available. When the rye is getting too 
large, the clover is in the best state to turn upon. 
The clover will do well until about the middle of 
June, when, if the weather turns off hot and dry, 
it grows quite slowly. It is well to have a patch 
of oats sown near and ready to tide over this 
time. If not needed it can grow for the harvest. 
During the hot weather of July, August, and Sep¬ 
tember, none of the crops named above can be 
fully relied on, and this is especially true where 
they have been fed too closely. Sorghum or Brown 
Dourra may be sown broadcast about the last of 
May and again the middle of June, to be used in 
July and August. Experience shows that Sor¬ 
ghum may be eaten off close to the ground when a 
foot to eighteen inches high, without serious in¬ 
jury. It will come up again and grow right along. 
It is also an excellent plant to stand dry weather. 
By the middle of July sweet corn is properly 
matured, and may be cut up and fed to the hogs 
which are to be fattened in the fall. Nothing 
will start a lot of hogs in laying on fat better 
than this. By the time the sweet com is 
done, the common field com is ready for feed. 
A mixture of red clover, timothy and orchard 
grass, which may be mowed about the first of July 
will soon furnish considerable food for pigs, 
from the aftermath. This comes in from the mid¬ 
dle to the end of July, at a time when it may be 
needed. 
For convenience of handling the fence, these lots 
of different forage crops should be sown near to¬ 
gether. If possible there should be both shade 
and water in all of them—especially in the lots 
used during hot weather. 
Low branching trees with dense compact tops 
standing in clumps or singly away from the fences 
make the most desirable shade. The air circulates 
freely under these trees, and the pigs are much 
cooler than when they get in the shade of the fence 
where the air has not so free circulation. The 
point to be aimed at is the succession of crops so as 
to utilize in each part of the season that plant 
which grows best at that time, and to see that a 
supply of fodder is always on hand. To stint the 
supply at any time will be likely to cheek the 
growth of the pigs, and when once checked, it is 
sometimes difficult to start it again. It is not 
necessary that these different lots should all be 
fenced separately, the same fence may easily be 
moved from one to the other so as to include each 
in turn. Hogs will live on prairie grass alone, but 
except in the most favorable time of the year they 
will not thrive upon it as they will on tame grass. 
Where hogs have only prairie grass for forage or 
pasture, it is economy to feed them a small amount 
of corn in addition. When prairie grass approaches 
its full growth, it becomes too tough to be eaten 
readily by hogs. But at this season, prairie pas¬ 
tures containing low land covered with weeds, 
will furnish considerable food for hogs. 
A few instances are known where farmers have 
combined to hire their hogs herded on the prairie. 
There seems to be no good reason why this should 
not be done more frequently. Yet, whenever pos¬ 
sible, the use of tame grasses and other cultivated 
forage crops will be found in the end most satis¬ 
factory. It may be and usually is necessary to 
ring the noses of hogs at pasture, to keep them 
from rooting into the soil and injuring the sod. 
With a good trap and other appliances costing but 
a trifle, two or three men will quickly insert “jew¬ 
elry” in the noses of a large number of swine. 
A Farm Gate. 
The posts, a, a, of oak or other strong durable 
wood, are eight inches square and stand five and one 
half feet above the ground. The posts, 6, 6, three 
and one third inches thick, four and three quarter 
feet long, are mortised to receive the slats c, c, 
which are of inch stuff, three inches wide and ten 
feet, four and three-quarter inches long. They are 
let into posts, 6, 6, at the distance marked in the en¬ 
graving. The slats, d, d , are three inches wide and 
one inch thick, and are placed opposite each other 
on front and back of the gate as braces ; e, e, are 
simply battens to make a straight surface for the 
hinges, /, f; all except the upper and lower ones 
are very short and not carried back to the post. The 
hinges made by a blacksmith from an old wheel 
A WELL-MADE GATE. 
tire are one and one-half inch wide, three-sixteenth 
inch thick, and are fastened by light iron bolts 
through the battens at e, and to the the rear post. 
The above describes a cheap, light, durable gate, 
which in over twenty-three year’s use, has never 
sagged, though standing in the thoroughfare 
of three farms, and also, for four years past, 
used for access to a sawmill. It is made of 
the best pine. The hinge is an important 
point. It is not only cheap and easily made, 
but acts as a brace for the gate at every 
point, and thus permits the gate to be lightly made. 
With this hinge sagging is impossible. A gate of 
this kind will rot down first. 
Store up Dry Earth. 
A plentiful supply of dry earth—not sand, out 
good loamy soil—should be laid in before the au¬ 
tumn rains come. It is needed for the earth closet, 
and in pig-pens, poultry houses, etc., as the most 
useful of disinfectants. Surface soil scraped up 
daily is rarely sufficiently dry. However dry it may 
seem, there is more or less moisture brought up 
from below. A supply of thoroughly dry earth is 
easily secured. Harrow the surface to make it 
as light and mellow as possible. Then lay down 
some boards side by side, to form a rude floor. 
Throw the dryest of the surface soil upon the 
boards, and in the course of a sunny day it will be¬ 
come thoroughly dry. Take up this earth before 
night, and spread another layer. Store the dry 
earth in barrels or boxes. It would be all the better 
to run the earth through a riddle, to remove stones, 
lumps, etc., as it is thrown upon the platform. 
Sometimes the road will afford a good supply of 
dry earth, especially if it comes from the grinding 
down of a stony surface. In the absence of dry 
earth of the right kind, coal ashes sifted, are an 
excellent substitute, and far better than sandy soil. 
