The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-11-13
FATTENING SWINE.

Gates VI SIShuy pork Ol6F. we are
free to say that. we think the farming
community would fare better if more
beef and mutton, and less pork, were
consumed. Spare-ribs and onions are
good for those who are out of doors
most of the time, and whose stomachs
are of the ostrich kind and boiled
pork and cabbage are relished by hard
workers in. cold climates, but to make
fried salt pork the staple dish, as it is
in some families, is not conclusive to
the normal development of the children,
nor to the health of the household, GER
tainly to the feminine and more seden-
tary part of it. We are not, however.
such Jews as to prescribe pork al
together, and to call that common and
unclean which God has evidently de-
signed for food. All that we designed
30 say on this point is, that outdoor
workers should not compel the whole
family to conform their diet to what is
suitable for themselves exclusively.
Notwithstanding the crusade of the
doctors and Psychologists against pork
and the frying-pan. we have no doubt
pigs we're made to be fattened and
eaten, and the question now before us
is how can they be fattened and made
ready for the table most successfully.
The first suggestion is, select the right
kinds for fattening. We know that it
it said that all hogs are hoggish, and
that the difference of herds consists
mainly in the swill barrel. To such
preiudiced and careless observers there
is no use talking. A hog is hog, TO
be sure, and can't be developed into a
COW or sheep by any degree of culture,
but there is as much difference in the
breeds of swine as of any other animal,
or, as we once heard it put, "There is
as much difference in hogs as in other
folks" The little, round, sleek, quiet
dispositioned Suffolks are no more like
the rOmping, bristling, slab sided, por-
cupine pigs, than Jersey COW is like
Durham bull. The Suffolks seem to
understand that their mission in the
world is to eat, sleep and grow fat. If
they are not gentlemanly, they are gen.
tie, and not disposed to quarrel, nor to
jump a five-rail fence. They are the
civilized breed, and do not waste their
energies in tearing their pens to pieces,
fighting their companions, and squeal-
ing for more food in an hour after they
have been fed, but, as fond parent
said of his twin babies, "They eat and
sleep SO natural.
We hear the Suffolks sometimes
called in .derision, "nice little pigs"
Well, it must be confessed they are not
elephantine in size, but then they make
from 200 to 300-pound porkers in eight
months, and whoever wants to eat lar
ger hogs than these is welcome to do
so. An overgrown animal is like an
overgrown vegetable, apt to be a little
coarse. The Suffolk pork, if it lacks in
quantity, is good in quality, being fine
grained, solid and well-favored.
This leeds us to say that for our own
use we never fatten anything but spring
pigs. 1t takes better feed and more
care to make pork from a pig than an
old hog, but the pork is better, and the
work j. accomplished in nine months
instead of eighteen. The advocates of
fattenihg old hogs seem to forget that
they feed twelve months or more before
they begin to fatten, and that store pigs
cannot live on air and water. If the
quality and quantity of food consumed
by an eighteen-mo, tbs hog and nine
months pig be compared, the advantage
will be found on the side of the
pig for equal amounts of pork pro-
duced. OF course there must be some
old fellows kept to propagate the spe-
eies, but these must in due time be fat
tened. But let them be sold to the
Gentiles, and not be consumed in the
family. Men chopping wood on the
or following the pillow all
day, can eat such pork; but it was
never made for women and children.
Pork, to be first rate, must be made
from pig that is kept thriving from its
conception to it's contamination, and
the shorter the time allotted for this the
better. Charles Lambs description of
the luciousness of roast pig would be
very inapplicable to an old porker, such
as we see in the pens of the western
slaughtering-houses.
In the matter of pork, we go in for a
homemade article. If any one can go
large pork-packing establish
ment, where thousand or more hogs
are slaughtered in day, where ones
clothes and whiskers become fairly sat
urated with the vile odors, and where
the eyes, ears and nose are alike dis
gusted. and come out an admirer of
diet, he must have a good
Pigs, in their normal condi-
ton, are not mclean; but when hud-
died together by the thousand it is not
among the possibilities for them to be
clean, and when slaughtered by the
thousand it is not possible for the
to be as redolent of
fine odors as a fower-garden. A pig
san live in a greater amount of filth
than any other animal, but no one will |
pretend that these car-loaded and close |
pen packed pigs can be as healthy ami |
mails as those fed, fattened, and slaugh- |
cred at home. Let those buy and eat |
western pork who like it we should be |
very hungry before we ordered it for a
Jquare meal.
Not all domestic pork is fattened in
he most approved manner. Multitudes
ieem to suppose that filth is congenial
o hog that he will thrive in the mud
md only ask for bare board for his
ouch. The truth is that the hog, and
indeed all animals in their wild state,
ire clearly, avoid all filth, and choose
soft and tidy bed in which to sleep.
n their restrained domestic condition
hey cannot carry out their natural in
tincts, but must conform to circum-
tances. Nothing can be more sleek
nd tidy than a sucking pig; but as he
rows large and fat, having super
bundance of heat producing material
n him, he seeks the mire for it's cooling
Influences. At all times, however, he
hrives best when in comfortable quar-
ers, and there was much truth in the
emark of farmer, who. when asked
low he fattened his swine SO nicely, re-
lied, "I fat them on clean straw"
leaning a nice straw bed.
As to the feed, there is nothing which
an compare with milk for the young
igs, and good old corn for the last few
,eeks of the porker's life. OF course,
J will not pay to feed pure milk to
igs, but the lskimmed milk has more
irtae in it than is generally supposed.
When the cream is taken off the main
,ss is fat carbon, one of the most abun-
ant substances in nature, and one
,hich the growing pig can well spare,
,r we do not wish to see young ami
lals, whether bipeds or quadrupeds
xcessiveIy fat. A snperabundance of ]
oppose is not indicative of health, and
oes not tend to development of sound {
one and solid muscle. The skinned !
ilk still retains the casein for the
rowth of muscle, and the saline mat
RS for the production of bone. An OBJ
irving farmer, and one who had had {
UGH experience, once said to us that he {
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