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

There can be no doubt that variety
of food is congenial to all animals, es-
pecially those of some maturity. Milk
may be the steady diet of the very
young but when they come to years of
discretion they will, left to themselves,
select variety of food, and wide is the
range which hogs will greedily devour,
and on which they will thrive. A good
feeder manages never to cloy his pigs
with one kind of food, but always
stimulates their appetites with different
eoCrses-potatoes at one time, apples
at another, and puupkin-pudding,
thlckened with meal, at another, always
winding up the fattening process with
dry corn on the ear to produce a solid
pork. Liquid buildings may answer
well for growth and the early stages of
fattening, but to top off with, dry corn
is the food.
The question is often asked whether
it pays to cook food for hogE. Some
kinds of food We should cook and some
we should not. Roots and grains are
better steamed, digesting more readily
and losing nothing by the cooking. APP
pies are best uncooked, as they lose
much of their aroma and stimulating
influence by being heated. Cooking
enables us to serve up greater variety
of dishes, and we should, therefore,
always have a caldron set in the pig
pen, and if properly set the amount of
fuel required is small. The caldron,
however, need not be used for the last
few days of the pigs life, nor should
we in these days give him any water.
One of the important things in feed
ing hogs, and indeed all animals, is to
feed regularly. They have no clocks,
and are not supposed to observe the
sun and stars very closely; still hogs
are not ignorant of the flight of time,
and they reckon very accurately as to
the hours for meals. If accustomed to
be fed at o'clock in the morning, II at
noon, and 6 at night, they want their
food pretty promptly at these hours,
and will grunt and grumble if they
don't have it's
This grumbling must be avoided, for
it wears off more flesh from men and
hogs than is commonly supposed. We
have been amused, on going into hog
pens, when the hogs are fed regularly,
to notice how little attention they pay
TO visitors at any time except meal
hours. They sleep right on, and it
sometimes requires some hard pokes to
arouse them, and when aroused they are
as apt to make for the door as the
trough. On the other hand, hogs fed
irregularly are on the q,Ii UiUe to see if
somebody has not brought them some
thing good to eat. Hogs are creatures
of habit, and they may be accustomed
to two or three or half-a-dozen meals a
day. We should certainly prefer three
to half-a.dozen. Feeding them every
time we pass the hog-pen as is the GUS
tom of some, is a WEAKNESS to the flesh
of both man and beast. A fat hog is
lazy animal, and quiet rest is essential
to his thrift.
Another suggestion is, keep the fat
ting pigs warm. Although they abound
with Matchmaking material, still they
are natives of a warm climate, and are
sensitive to the cold as we'll as heat.
This is especially true of the finer va
rieties that have originated from Asia,
and have comparatively little hair and
no bristles. A warm bed is economical,
for it saves adipose substance which
would otherwise be expended in keep
ing up animal heat. Every farmer
knows that he can fatten hogs faster in
September and October than in Novem-
Der and December, if his pens are not
we'll protected against the cold, but if
they are warm the fattening process
goes on as well in January as in June.
Again we say, if we must have pork,
let US have that made according to the
laws in such cases made and provided.
ALer. Hyde, IN ~ y. Times.