Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1869-08-12
.farm and 55onsehnla.
Cor the Chronicle:
.a Breeding and Fattening Hogs.

| For the Chronicle:
isS6 Breeding and Fattening Hogs.
E1gAs d large number of your readers are
Farmers and more or less engag. in
tpork raising, some of them, perhaps,
would be gratified to know the practical
Experience of a fellow farmer in that
branch of farming My stock Of hogs is
now In agood condition to show the
contrast between careful breeding with
good feeding, and careless breeding and
poer feeding. ] offer the following as
fmy experience for a short time back,
which if you think worthy of place in
your paper you may give to your read
ers: -f ,~f 80 1fg
will not say anything about fifteen
shoats l have. that are the result of
careless breeding, Only that they are a
cross between my good stock and the
poor stock running at large in the coun-
try, and the same kind may be seen all
over the country. As to my good ones
I weuld say that Il have Been improving
my stock for some time and think I
have now the best breed in this neigh
borhood, combining what / esteem as
the three most desirable qualities of the
hog, namely: Small head with fine
bone, inclination to take on flesh rapid
iy and easily fatted at any age, and
maturing early and growing quite large.
The mother of my present breeder at %
months old, having reared three good
litters of pigs, was slaughtered and
weighed 462 pounds clean meant when
cool enoagh to be salted down. Ny
present breeder is a fine young hog; she
raised six good pigs last winter and Oh
the Both of May last she produced six
more, one of which was smothered. She
being some distance from the house /
entrusted the feeding to little boys, in
structing them to give her two ears of
corn morning and might but it was ne
elected. In about ten days she came
home and | resumed feeding myself,
feeding very moderately for about ten
days. The pigs looked SO promising
that commenced to. give them extra
attention, stopping them regularly three
times day, but at no time as much as
they would have eaten. They ran on
midlipg good bluegrass pasture. / had
no milk, which esteem as the best food
for pigs, to give them. On the 30th of
June, being thirty days old, l weighed
them; they weighed in the aggregate
143 pounds, or a little over 2Sl pounds
per head. On last Friday, July 80, be-
ing two months old L weighed them
again and they weighed 30l pounds, or
a little over go pounds per head, one of
them as is usual being. s'runtnv only
weighed 30, pounds. 1tI consider this al
good lot of pigs, but l am satisfied that
if they mad been given the same atten-
ton for the first twenty days that they
received afterwards, and had been fed
some milk with their other food they
would now be some better. The mother
issnot run down in sucking.
Now here is 30l pounds of pork in wo
months. All will admit that at their
age could not have eaten very large
amount of feed, no matter how heavily
fed. Compare this with the amount Of
corn that it usually: takes to put that
weight on two or three, common, thin
hogs in the fail and any one acquainted
with feeding hogs will have no d. fficulty
in deciding which is the cheapest pork
Hogs are an expensive stock to raise
and fatten in any way, and my. opinion
is that little more Scarein breeding and
feeding will pay as well as If expended
in most other ways on the farm. My
experience in hog raising induces Inc to
tasted meat small head and bone, and
for cheap meat hogs that will mature |
early, and then never suffer them to get
poor. ARC 1872
: If anyE of your readers have lately
beaten me raising pigs or have better
practicalhviewsi of pork raising, please
induce then 20 give them to yhepubiic.
y Hendrysburgh, July so. q. aora. st,l..
REMARKS BY EDIToR.-1f Mr.. It'd
bali would inform our readers what
breed ofbogs he has. and which breed
or cross Of breeds possesses the requisite