SWINE TROUBLES. 
821 
tion, its feed, or its sanitary care. Any type of hog was good 
enough for pork. No attention was paid to what herd it was 
taken from ; and as for feed, anything was good enough for a 
hog; the hovel it was kept in was little better than a cesspool. 
In this manner our people worked on until machinery took 
their places in the field and elsewhere ; man was obliged to 
stand idly by, employing neither body nor mind. But such is 
not to be our lot, for Providence sent disease among our herds 
of hogs. Our minds, until then easy, were turned toward the 
herds of swine. We began to think, to read ; observations be¬ 
gan which brought about a revolution. We now select and 
breed with much care ; we use great precautions from what 
herds we buy and breed ; we are very careful in choosing and 
curing the food ; the old-time hovel, 4 feet high, 7x10, is re¬ 
placed by large, high, well-lighted and ventilated rooms, which 
are cleaned and whitewashed with care. 
The disease which made its appearance among our hogs we 
call “ Hog Cholera,” for want of a better term, I suppose ; but 
we claim that we have very good grounds for so terming it, 
though I think we have other troubles among the hogs brought 
about from dietary disorders. 
In 1891 Mr. A., a farmer near our village, visited me, com¬ 
plained that he had been losing a great many hogs in past years, 
and wished that I would pay a visit to his herd and suggest 
measures to save his pigs and stay the raids of disease. I vis¬ 
ited the herd, found some dead, others dying, etc. I made 
several post-mortems, and from the lesions I found, my atten¬ 
tion was directed to the feeding, for I believed at that time that 
there was no hog cholera in the east. On investigation I found 
that the feed was swill gathered from the hotels and boarding¬ 
houses of Plattsburgh. The sanitary surroundings were not 
good, and in general the hogs were poorly understood and cared 
for. At my suggestion the animals were divided into three di¬ 
visions. Division 1 was made up of all the healthy animals, 
division 2 the suspicious ones, and division 3 the diseased ones. 
Each of the apartments was now clean, large, well lighted and 
