The Cecil Whig., 1871-09-23

rich food, grain, &c, at once, but give a
regular feed of small quantity until
you give what you think they will eat
up clean; but as soon as they leave any
feed in their troughs, you should not
feed them again until they have finished
eating up their breakfast or dinner, as
the case may be, when you may give
them a rather diminished supply, leav-
ing them sufficiently hungry at meal
time to cat with relish what is given to
them Too mnch feed at the commence
ment of fattening is as bad for swine as
improper food, a stunted growth being
the noticeable result in both, and any
breeder of experience knows that it is
worth almost as much, if not more, to
fatten stunted hog than it is worth.
BY the middle of September the fat
tening process should be commenced in
good earnest, and the work completed
before severe cold weather sets in. As
rule, we believe, that where hogs are
kept in open lots without shelter, as
most are, two bushels of corn will lay
on more fat in October than three bush
els will in January.
If you feed corn on the ear, be sure
and have good dry pen or lot to feed
it in. Many farmers will throw corn
to their hogs in wet, filthy pen, where
they stand in mud up to their knees
1t is more than half wasted before they
eat it, and what they do eat, does not
do them much good if they do not have
a comfortable place to sleep in.
1t will scarcely be credited how much
is gained by cooking the food of fatten-
ing hogs; and if that cannot well be
done, the food may be greatly improved
by being soaked in milk or water,
whether it be first ground or used whole
By so doing, if the soaking process con-
tinues long enough, the food will be-
come fcrmented, and then the animals
will eat more of it, and fatten more
readily than on the raw article. Eng
lish farmers not onl y feed their hogs a
variety of food, but have it cooked, or
soaked till fermented, and finish up by
giving raw meal for the last few days
to harden up the fat.
1t will not cost much to rig up cheap
apparatus for cooking feed, and we know
that it will repay many times the cost.
A writer in the Country Gentleman
states that he had tried the experiment
of feeding on raw whole corn and on
corn ground and boiled, and as the
result of his experiment, he found that
every pound of pork made with the raw
food cost % cents, while every pound
made by feeding cooked meal costs but
l-2 cents.
Another point should not be forgot
ten, and that is, that the hog can only
be proftably fed up to certain point
that is, it will only pay to continue
the fattening process so long as the
animal will eat enough to lay ON flesh
and fat rapidly. When that point is
reached nothing is gained by going fur
ther, and the curer should have it then.
If the farmer live near enough, he will
find it pa;s better to sell his fat hogs
alive to the curer, than kill them HIM
self.
Rotten wood, charcoal and ashes are
frequently recommended for fattening
animals, especially for swine Swine
do not consume such substances because
they like them as articles of food, but
simply to give bulk to the contents of
the stomach. Grass, hay cut fine, bran
or boiled roots, would subserve far
better purpose. When swine have be-
come rather fat and are supplied with
heavy feed, there will be tendency to
irritation of the stomach, succeeded by
inflammation, and then disease. A ply
sician states that it is a common prac-
tice to endeavor to counteract this ten
dency to disease by feeding sulphur,
coal, bones, clay, rotten wood, &c,
which may be, to some extent, benefi-
cial; but it is like the drugs, used to
infuse life and health into the gouty,
rheumatic, epicurean biped The health
thus obtained is of an inappreciable
amount compared with that of the hardy
rustic who never had gout or apoplexy.
The hog is an cpicurean philosopher
and as Providence deals with his biped
prototype (the votary of that philoso-
pher) by throwing in disease at the pro-
per time to close the scene, so the
butchers knife should do for the quad
ruped what Providence does for the
biped, but little in advance, just be-
fore the disease is developed
american Stock Journal.