THE CULTIVATOR. 
FATTENING PORK. 
Madam Glass, in her delectable dissertations on cooke¬ 
ry, as a preparatory step towards dishing a sturgeon’s 
nose, first directs the novice in culinary art to catch one; 
so the preliminary step in making pork is to catch or 
procure the pigs. On the choice of the animals made 
for feeding, most of the profit will be depending; and 
when it is recollected there is an immense difference be¬ 
tween the pleasure of feeding daily a pen of sleek, quiet, 
thriving grunters, andlhe continual irritation and vexa¬ 
tion experienced in dealing out provender to a gang of 
ungrateful, squealing, squabbling creatures, of whom, 
week after week you are obliged to say, “ the more they 
eat the worse they look,” the necessity of attention to 
this point of selection will be apparent to all. It would 
be rather difficult at present, in any civilized part of the 
country to find any of the genuine old fashioned squeal¬ 
ers, that used to devour all a farmer’s corn, and then 
weigh from one hundred to one hundred and fifty; but 
a little observation will show there are multitudes of 
lrogs about the country, but a few shades removed from 
these, and the task of making pork from such will be 
found both tedious and unprofitable. In spite of the op¬ 
position which has been made by the ignorant and the 
prejudiced, the good effects of the importation of good 
breeding hogs, has long been felt in the improvement 
generally of our swine. In some kind and degree, and 
under some local or general name, hogs with an infu¬ 
sion of imported blood which has essentially altered 
their form and propensity to fatten, are to be found all 
over the country. The Byfield, the Mackay, the Dar¬ 
lington, the Parkinson, and a multitude of other varie¬ 
ties, all originating from some fortunate cross of the im¬ 
ported and native breeds, have for a number of years 
nearly or quite in the eastern and middle states, dis¬ 
placed the alligator, shad backs, and saw horse tribe of 
the original stock. More lately still have been intro¬ 
duced the pigs called the Grass breed, the Irish grazier, 
and superior to all, as combining the good qualites of 
all, the beautiful Berkshire. We know that it is a com¬ 
mon remark among the stationary, or no-movement far¬ 
mers, that it is the feed and not the breed that makes 
the hog; and we know too that a more unfounded and 
injurious notion scarcely exists. Fifty years since, far¬ 
mers gave their hogs more good feed in making pork 
than is now done, yet no one will pretend the average 
weight at that time, could be compared with that reach¬ 
ed by modern porkers. In conversing with a veteran 
farmer of nearly eighty, a few days since on this very 
topic, he remarked—“1 remember when with three 
yoke of cattle and a common cart, I carried to market 
at a single load twenty-seven fatted hogs, and all scarce¬ 
ly weighed as much as half a dozen of our best hogs 
now weigh.” Perhaps as good a breed of hogs for the far¬ 
mer as can be found, would be one that with small clean 
bone and light offals, would weigh at eighteen months 
and well fatted, about four hundred pounds. There is 
no possible necessity in a hog of this weight, in having 
one third of the weight bone, as was the case with the 
coarse, large boned, long legged breeds. There is as 
much difference in the size of the bones in the improved 
hogs and the old breeds, as between those of the Arabian 
and the English dray horse; and while there should 
always be enough, too great a redundancy of bone is 
one of the most serious defects in any animal intended 
for feeding. Select then for fattening, hogs well form¬ 
ed, short snouts, light offals, clean boned, quiet, and if 
possible of breeds which experience has proved fatten 
easily, and place the greatest weight where it will be 
worth the most. The extremes of the hog genus are 
the Alligator and the Chinese. On the first food and 
time are thrown away; the last are when pure too 
small for the farmer who makes pork to sell, but is the 
most quiet and easily fattened of any breed. Expe¬ 
rience has shown that a cross between the Chinese and 
some variety of fine points, but heavier and larger, 
makes the best farmer’s hogs, and the improved Berk- 
shires are at present deemed the ne plus ultra of swinish 
perfection. 
Having selected your pigs, the next thing to be at¬ 
tended to is your hog-house, pen, or place of feeding. 
Many farmers have their pig pen as long as the road, 
or as large as their fields, and affect to wonder they do 
not derive as much profit from making pork as some of 
their neighbors, who manage things differently. A pig 
must be kept comfortable, as well as well fed, if the 
farmer would have the full profit of the materials fed 
out. Pens, where a farmer feeds several hundred hogs, 
as many of those of the west, do, would perhaps be im¬ 
practicable, or from the low price of pork and the cost 
of building materials, unprofitable. There the farmer 
divides his hundred acres of corn into ten or twenty 
acre fields. When the corn is ripe, his hogs, numer¬ 
ous in proportion to the acres of corn on which they 
are to be fed, are turned into one of his fields, and 
gather the corn for themselves ; and this they soon be¬ 
come expert in doing. When the first field is cleaned, 
the hogs are let into another, and so in succession un¬ 
til the whole is devoured, when, if the fields have not 
been overstocked, they will be fit to be driven to mar¬ 
ket. This mode of feeding would, however, be ruin¬ 
ous to a large majority of the farmers in the United 
States, and a more economical method of fattening 
must be adopted. A hog house then, with fixtures for 
preparing their food by steaming or boiling, and at¬ 
tached pens and yards for the use of the swine, are in¬ 
dispensable where much profits in making pork are ex¬ 
pected. In arranging the pens, particular reference 
should he had to the £ 0 &V«£d ence feeding, and the 
comfort of the animal. The pen itself should be warm 
and dry, and the bed free from dirt or manure. Hogs 
love to have dirt at their pleasure, but no hog wishes 
to live in it constantly. Experience would seem to show 
that the more quiet a hog is, and the less he is permit¬ 
ted to exercise his locomotive powers, the faster he will 
fatten; and hence in many parts of Great Britain, it 
has become common to give each pig a separate stall, 
so arranged that he is completely separated from all 
others, has his part of the trough and his feed entirely 
to himself, and is not disturbed by the intrusion or vo¬ 
racity of his fellow grunters. These stalls are so nar¬ 
row that the hog cannot turn in them, and whether he 
lies or stands, it is always with liis head to the trough. 
The floor is kept clean by slanting backwards, where 
a sliding board or door, enables a man with a hoe to 
remove whatever filth or dung may have accumulated 
in the stall. The following cut will give a front view 
of a section of these stalls, the board before the troughs 
removed to show the position of the animals. 
[Pig Stall —Fig. 91.] 
Where a number of hogs feed together at the same 
trough, there are some among them that usually mo¬ 
nopolize an undue proportion of the food and of the 
trough, (in this attempt at monopoly has the genus sus 
been instructed by the genus homo ?) and to prevent 
this, some place erect pins in front of the trough, the 
upper parts secured in a piece of timber parallel with 
the trough, which will prevent a good deal of this ty¬ 
rannical usurpation; while others, to accomplish the 
same end, put wooden pins across the top of the trough, 
which will prevent the master or mistress of the stye from 
inserting their nose at one end, and with a single sweep 
clearing the whole. It is an excellent plan to have the 
troughs fitted with a board in such a way, that the hogs 
can be shut from it while the attendant is replenishing 
it. This may easily be done, by having one suspended 
over the trough by hinges, or otherwise, in such a man¬ 
ner that it can at pleasure he swung forward and se¬ 
cured, shutting the porkers from the trough or back¬ 
wards, to allow their access. 
A large part of the expense of feeding and fattening 
SAvine may be made up to the feeder, if proper arrange¬ 
ments are made about the pen and yard, to have the 
full benefit of the manure made by the pigs. The value 
of hog manure is so well knoAvn, that it is unnecessary 
to say a Avord in its favor here. For corn, it is so far 
beyond all others we have tried, that for that crop as 
well as others it may he considered invaluable. Give 
them a chance, and each pig that is fattened will make 
at least two loads of good manure. To do this, their 
pens and yards must be frequently covered lightly with 
horse littering, for them to root over and work upon. 
The yards attached must retain the urine and wash of 
the pens, and into this, Aviththe straw mentioned, should 
be put an occasional load of muck, Aveeds, Avash of the 
roads, or almost any substance hogs will work upon, and 
which will retain the salts and volatile parts of the ma¬ 
nure now generally lost. If the porkers do not seem inclin¬ 
ed to root over and incorporate the mass, fling over it a 
few handfuls of corn or barley, and they will soon 
mix it to the bottom. Keep the pens clean, and keep 
the manure distributed over the yards. FoIIoav these 
directions, and the farmer will find himself in the spring, 
in possession of a supply of manure, that applied to his 
corn in the hill, or otherAvise, Avill give, in the increased 
crop, an ample reAvard for the extra labor incurred, i'n 
addition to the permanent benefit afforded the soil. 
In making pork, the food used, and its preparation, 
is a most essential part of the process; for the most 
perfect pigs, and the best arranged pens, do not make 
first rate pork without plenty of good food. No good 
farmer ever attempts to see Avith how little food he can 
keep his animals, summer or winter, or fatten them; 
his object is to ascertain how good food can be most 
beneficially employed, and made the most profitable. 
Different substances are of very different values for fat¬ 
tening animals, although a sufficient supply of nearly 
any kind of food, will cause them to improve; this value 
in most kinds is very much increased by cooking, or 
other preparation. A few words Avill explain why 
cooked food is more nutritive, than that Avhich is in a 
raAV statp. Raspail and Biot, by an able and curious 
series of experiments, proved that the nutritive power 
of any substance lies in the farinaceous globules, and 
that to be available, these globules must first have their 
envelop crushed, or othenvise ruptured. This is 
partially done by grinding, still more by mastication, 
but never so completely as by boiling, or subjection to 
an elevated temperature. In that case the matter in the 
globules expands, bursts the envelop, and of course is 
wholly appropriated to the purposes of nourishment. 
Experiments a thousand times repeated, demonstrate 
the justness of these conclusions, and prove that the 
man who attempts to fatten animals on uncooked food, 
overlooks the simplest principles of domestic economy. 
Roots and fruit are best cooked by steaming. A large 
proportion of the pork made at the present day, is par¬ 
tially or wholly fed on potatoes or apples. To give 
these with profit, steaming is indispensable; and the ap¬ 
paratus is as simple and cheap as it is efficient for do¬ 
ing this. A box or vat of the size required, is made 
of plank closely grooved and secured at the corners, 
on the bottom of which common sheet iron is thickly 
nailed, which will give the box the power of retaining 
water. This box with a tight lid, is placed on bars of 
iron over a fire flue, and the substances placed in this 
are quickly and fully cooked. Steamers made in this 
Avay are used for scalding hogs, and by some for mak¬ 
ing maple sugar. Steamers of a more costly and com¬ 
plicated kind, may be found described and figured in the 
previous pages of the Cultivator, and other journals. 
In the United States, Indian corn may he considered 
the main article for feeding swine, although many oth¬ 
er kinds of food are used, as circumstances may require. 
Corn, however, stands so decidedly at the head of all 
other substances used for making pork, wherever it can 
be grown, that the best method of feeding it becomes an 
object of national importance. It is most generally fed 
to pigs in the ear, frequently thrown upon the ground 
or the mud ; practices far from economical. It is some¬ 
times soaked in water until softened and SAvelled, or 
ground into meal and mixed up with water at the time 
of feeding. Either of these methods is preferable to 
feeding the grain to them in the ear; but in none of 
these ways do the hogs derive the full benefit of the 
corn given them. It should be ground and made into 
pudding by the addition of a large quantity of Avnter, 
and long boiling. Should any one have doubts as to the 
great saving which Avould be effected by this prepara¬ 
tion of corn, we think his doubts would be removed by 
an examination of the series of experiments made by 
Mr. Colman of Mass., and to be found in the Transac¬ 
tions of the Essex Co. Ag. Society for 1835, or the abridg¬ 
ment of them in the American Swine Breeder, by Mr. 
Ellsworth. The experiments of Mr. Colman have been 
repeated and varied many times with the same results, 
and one recorded in the first volume of the Farmer’s 
Cabinet, made in the most satisfactory manner, shows 
that the saving of feeding hogs on pudding, over that of 
feeding on shelled corn, is fully equal to one half of the 
grain used. Some experiments made in feeding animals 
Avith meal made by grinding the corn and cob together, 
and cooking the whole, Avould seem to show, that the 
gain in this way was equal to one third of the grain 
used. This is not improbable, when it is recollected 
that where food contains large quantities of nutriment, 
more is usually taken into the stomach than can be ap¬ 
propriated, and is therefore lost. The stomach, to per¬ 
form its functions completely, requires distention as 
well as nourishment; and it seems likely that the desi¬ 
red proportion between bulk and nutritive matter, is 
much more nearly gained by grinding the cob than 
using the grain without it. It is on the same principle 
that the oat is found better for the horse than any other 
grain ; namely, because the relation between nutri¬ 
ment and the required bulk for distending the stomach, 
is better fulfilled in this grain than any other. 
But though corn may be considered the best of all 
grains for making pork, there are others used, Avhich 
are more or less valuable. In England, Avhere corn is 
unknown, pork is made by feeding peas and barley 
ground together ; and this is probably of all substances, 
the one that approaches nearest to corn in feeding SAvine. 
Roots are also extensively grown for this purpose ; ap¬ 
ples are very valuable ; but whatever may be the arti¬ 
cle used to begin with, the feeding must be finished with 
grain or peas. There may be bulk without this, but so¬ 
lidity and sweetness will be Avanting. It will resemble 
meat made at the distillery; the hams will lack firm¬ 
ness, the lard will be oily, the pork shrinks in cooking, 
or will not wear well. The best pork therefore, can 
only be made by the use of corn, peas, or barley; and 
this should be well understood and practiced upon by 
the farmer. But in the use of these materials and their 
preparation, much, if not all of the profit of feeding is 
depending; and in fattening tAventy porkers, some far¬ 
mers waste food enough to feed at least a quarter more 
if properly managed Let the man who wishes to take 
lessons in feeding pigs, visit a Shaker’s establishment; 
let him see the attention Avith which their pens are lit¬ 
tered; the neatness with which they are kept; the nice¬ 
ty with which the food is prepared and served out to 
them, and he will not be surprised at the thrift and con- 
dition of hogs so cared for, or the profit resulting from 
the process. 
After hogs have reached a certain point of fatness, 
there is no profit in keeping them longer; for though 
they consume little food, they gain little in Aveight, and 
do not compensate for the care and trouble of feeding. 
It is true this point is not commonly reached in feeding 
swine; and more are killed before they have reached 
the point of greatest profit, (that is before they have be¬ 
come fully larded or their flesh solid,) than after that 
time. No small part of the goodness of pork depends 
upon the operation of killing and dressing; and these 
should receive strict attention. In bleeding a pig, some 
will so mangle the throat, and so hack and saw the 
shoulders with the knife, that more meat will be lost 
from its bloody state than AAmuld pay for dressing the 
animal in the best manner. Then the scalding and re¬ 
moval of the hair is so imperfectly done as to render 
every part of the rind a nuisance in cooking ; whereas 
this part of dressing a pig should be performed with the 
greatest care, and finished in the most perfect manner. 
Two methods of removing the hair are practiced in 
England. In one, the part of the animal to be scalded 
is covered with a thick woollen cloth, and this is kept 
