Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1855-12-08
farmers department.
Work for the Month.

Hoes FOR FArTEHING-THEIR TREATMENT &c.
If you have them not already prepared, you
should forthwith prepare your pens aud yards
for the hogs you intend to fatten. Tho pens
should consist of two apartments the one for
them to sleep i'll, the other to feed in they
both should be tight, dry, warm, with doorway
leading from the feeding room into an enclosed
ward the yard should be provided with Il rub
bling post. When the maSts of the forest are
consumed, the hogs should be withdrawn and
confined in their f%attening quarters, as 1t is lm-
portant they should be placed therein IN good
condition, which condition they Will be in as
long as the mast affords them ample supplies
of food. Before removing the hogs from the
woods or other pasture, have your hos-yard
covered some five or six inches deep with marsh
or river mud, cleanings of bitches, wo0dS-mould,
road-scrapingS, the earth from headlands, or
any rough materials capable of being convert
ed into manure. Every two weeks during the
fattening season remove these substances from
the yard into some convenient place, form them
into compost heaps, intermiXing Herewith /
bushel of plaster with every 30 loads, and CO.
yer the heaps with earth and COMPRISING the
earth with the back of the shovel. Each CO.
vcring of the substances named, as removed,
should be replaced with others. Let not the
trouble and labor this may give you deter you
from following our advice, as for every hog
you may have in your pen, yoa may thereby
obtain two loads of as good manure as ever
fertilised the earth. Than hog manure, the
solid and liquid, there is no animal manure so
rich, or more so, in those clements which tend
to fertiliSe the earth and ensure large crops.
This will readily be admitted when we reflect
upon the fact that every 100 lbs. Of urine of
the hog contains 5.64 per cent. of urea with
q little slime and albumen-which may be con-
sidered as equal, on decomposition, to so much
ammonia, and that the salts amount to l.76
per cent ; while the solid and liquid, taken to-
gcther, ranks hog manure is equal to night
soil.
When your hogs are first taken up for fat
tcniug, they should receive two or three doses
of flour OF sulpher, and as many of copperas,
say a tablespoonful at a dose, to lie given in
mesScS of bran, or meal, made into slop, at in
tervals Of a day apart. Tier food for the
first two or three weeks should be pumpkins,
apples and roots, or other vegetables which
should be boiled, or steamed, and made into
maShcs with bran or meal, the latter should be
increased from.day to day, so that when they
come to have corn, or meal altogether, the
change of diet may not be injuriously felt by
them.
In connection with the subject of feeding
grain, we would remind our readers that ground
corn meal, cooked, will 90 80 per cent. further
in f~attening hogs than will the raw grain whole,
and that the whole grain when boiled will go
- or 20 per cent. further than when not boil
ed.
Cow AND CATTLE YARDs.-Thesc should be
provided with warm, dry sheds, facing the
south or southeast, for the animals to retire
TO in inclemcnt weather, and to sleep in the
sheds should be divided into stalls, and provid-
ed with racks and managers to feed in the
beds of the stalls should be SO graded to be
higher than the yard, SO as to keep the stalls
dry, and if possible, the cattle should be pro-
vided with straw OF other coarse litter as bed
ding, which should be removed twice a week
and replaced with fresh materials. The young
and old cattle should have separate yards.
Before you bring your cattle into the yards
for winter quarters, have such rough materials
AS We have recommended hauled therein and
spread on your COW and cattle yards to the
depth of II inches. Let your yards he basin
shaped, so as to prevent the escape of the urine.
Spread a busting Of plaster over these rough
materials when first fashioned into shape, and
occasionally as the deposites of Jour stock ac-
cnmulate, give the yard a busting of plaster.
If practicable, in about six weeks after you
have brought your cattle into the yards for
winter, you should add 6 inches in depth of
rough materials, preserving the basin-like shape
of the yard, adding plaster as before. If you
follow this advice, next spring when You come
to rcmoye your manure to the fields, if you
mix it up well as you throw it into your carts
and wagons, every pound Of it will be better
than any cOwyard manure You ever made in
the ordinary way, because the ammoniacal ele-
ments Of the manure will have been measure.
bly, preserved from deterioration.