The Rural NewYorker 
The Business Farmer’s Paper 
VoL. LXXVI. NEW YOIIK, MARCH 10, 1017. No. 44L>0. 
Weekly, One Dollar Per Year 
Postpaid 
Single Copies, Five Cents 
Published by 
The Rural Publishing Co. 
333 W. 30th Street 
New York 
Cutting Out the Middleman 
Delivery to the People 
PRING PIGS.—Ever.v year I try to raise about 
one hundred i)i|?s and fatten them. I keep five 
breeding sows, and witli two litters apiece. I usu¬ 
ally get towards a hundred. They begin to farrow 
around the first of ilareh. and these I put in a 
stable in the basement of the barn so as to have 
a warm place for them. If I had the room I would 
try to have them all farroAV around that time, as 
I think it would be tbe best time to make the jnost 
out of them. Last Spring I had one sow farrc^ at 
that time and she raised 11, Avhich I sold in a lump 
to tlie butcher in September for almost two hun¬ 
dred dollars. The others I do not sell to the 
butcher, but butcher them myself, and try to make 
the profit myself, which I will describe later. 
PASTURING SOWS .VND LITTERS.—Now as to 
raising them. I have three fields of rather cheap 
land of a few acres each. One is a woodlot of 
about ‘.iy, acres, with one acre adjoining in which 
I sow a mixture of nipe. Soy beans and vetch, and 
in the othei' two-acre field I sow rape. I have started 
one acre of Sweet clover, which looks promising. 
but somehow it seemed tliey did not like my idan, 
as they mentioned another man who tried to do 
this. This was that man's first expeilence and he 
was a ‘‘baek-to-the-lnnder” and a doctor, who had 
plenty of means to experiment. This doctor lives 
on the road Avhere I have to pass every week Avhen 
I go to the market, and his piggery is on each side 
of the road, so I had a good chance to study his 
pigs. He certainiy had some nice pasture fields, 
and the pigs ate it ravenously and clean to the 
ground, but the pigs did not grow fast. I believe 
he purchased Shotes to start, and they Avere not 
much bigger m the Fall tluin in the Spring. If he 
had fed plenty of grain or mill feeds during the 
Summer. AA'hile in pasture, I think he AA'ould have 
made money Avith his pigs, and would have them 
all near 200 pounds by early Fall. I am certain 
that it pays to feed liberally all the time, so as to 
push them along, so that in six to eight months 
they will dress 200 pounds. There is not much dan¬ 
ger in overfeeding Avhile they run in pasture. Last 
year I raised a large croj) of corn. Corn is Avorth 
one dollar a bushel on the open market, but as I 
market my coim through the pigs I believe I came 
near the two-dollar mark. 
quite a lot to cook with the turnips. For instance, 
the head has a lot on it, and that I leave in the 
kettle a feAv days till nil the tis.sues and meat falls 
off, and by cooking these meats and fats AAUth the 
turnips it becomes a rich vegetal>le soup Avhich is 
ideal for the pigs in the Winter when much corn is 
fed. It helps to keep their bowels in good slntpe, 
and be.sides it is good for the little ones, especially 
in cold Aveather, to give them a Avarm meal. A lit¬ 
tle salt is added to taste. All this may seem to be 
quite a lot of Avork, but it is not. I have every 
thing hand.v. I fill the kettles in the morning, fill 
the .stove Avith Avood of four-foot length, start the 
fire, and in the evening it is cooled off enough to 
feed it, so you see it does not take much extra 
work. 
MIXED BREEDS. — I luiAe now a mixed l)reed. as 
I only try to rai.se hogs for butchering. Freqm'iitly 
I get a purebred boar. A few years ago I tried to 
raise purebreds by getting a pair of Berkshires, l)ut 
the boar turned out not to breed, so I Avas left on 
that. The soav is a good lireeder, and is a good pig, 
a nice speciman. I only try to get the best sows 
I can raise, no matter whether black or white—in 
fact my best one is white, and she gives the best 
A Field of Alfalfa in Windsor County, Vt.; Cut August 15; Picture Taken October 2. Fig. 148 
In each of these fields are two springs of never- 
failing water. The first place Ave put them is in 
the Avoodlot about the fifteenth of May, and keep 
them in there till the rape is ready to pasture in 
the earliest field. By that time this is pastured 
doAvn and the other field is ready to pasture. I 
suppose the first one ready this year Avill he the 
SAveet clover acre. I soav the rape fields at differ¬ 
ent time.s, and thus AA'e have about every four Aveeks 
a neAv field to pasture. When one field is pastured 
dOAvn and the pigs are turned out it Avill groAV up 
again and become good. 
GRAIN NEEDED.—I think pastures are a good 
thing, blit I find so many people jump to a con¬ 
clusion too quickly, and think that this is all the 
pigs need, but this is a grave mistake as I haA'e 
learned from experience. A fcAV men came to me 
last .Summer, 10 miles distance, to see hoAV I pas¬ 
tured my pigs, and they were of the opinion that 
they need nothing to gi*OAV and get fat for the 
butcher. It Avould certainly be nice to turn a lot of 
soAvs Avith litters in the field and do'nothing in feed¬ 
ing, and in the Fall befoi’e the Winter sets in bring 
them out big and fat ready for the butcher. I tried 
to persuade these men that this could not be done, 
COOKED FEED.— When new corn conies in I 
.start to feed them very gradually, as soon as possi¬ 
ble, and feed middlings and tankage. Tankage is 
by far the cheape.st protein to get, and they like it. 
Corn is of cour.se the bulk of the fattening ration. 
Middlings are high, so I feed rather spai’ingly. I 
butcher every Aveek during the Winter. I cook 
the pigs some rich .soups. I ahvays soav CoAV-horn 
turniiis in the corn at the last Avorking for the 
good of the soil, and from these I usually harvest 
about 100 bushels for the SAvine during the Win¬ 
ter. I have a cement stove for tAvo large iron ket¬ 
tles. This stOA'e is ‘2y feet Avide by six feet long 
and tAvo feet high, and the Avails arc six inches 
thick. It is on the north side of the pig stable, 
AA'here the smallest shotes sleep in the Winter. 
These thick cement walls are ahvays (luite Avarm, 
and this keeps the .stable Avarin, Avhich is ahAmys a 
good thing for pigs in cold Aveather, it saves feed, 
or rather makes them groAA^ faster. On this .stove 
are tAvo large kettles. I have a hushel of turnips 
in every day. and the offal from the Aveekly butch¬ 
ering, Avhich I carefully pn'serve so I have a piece 
every day to cook Avith the turnips. I I)utcher a beef 
every tAVo or three weeks, and from a beef we get 
pigs AA'hen bred to a black boar. I am ahA’ays care¬ 
ful so that the boar is a good one and not related 
to the SOAV. 
MARKETING.—I attend the Lebanon market 
CA^ery Saturday from 10 o'clock A. M. until four P, 
M. These hours just suit me, as I huA'e daylight to 
make the trip. I have IG or IS miles, but I u.sually 
take the 18-mile route, for it is the best for the 
motor truck. When the roads are in good condi¬ 
tion I can make it in one hour. I hardly think it 
is any disadvantage to live so far aAA'ay. I rather 
prefer it. Here Ave have good land cheap, say $35 
an acre, AAhile near the market it is $200 an acre. 
Near the city the labor is .scarce and high, Avhile 
here it is much loAver and moi’e plentiful. Taxes 
are Ioav too. Taking it all in all I much prefer 
this. I believe a farmer can make more money. 
GETTING THE CONSUMER’S DOLLAR.—In 
this market house there is only one market a Aveek, 
and the rent is G5 cents a day. Here the farmers, 
butchers and hucksters all have the .same stand, 
hut the people prefer tlie farmer butcher. I usu¬ 
ally staj-t butchering in October. Avhen the corn 
is nearly all aAvay and the Aveather is cold enough 
for the meats. We try to manufacture our pigs and 
