Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, D.T. [N.D.]) 1875-1878, 1876-12-13

;EMBER 13, 1876.
ButterWick's Pig.
/. Max Adeler says: ssWe bought that
pig,"' said Mr.. Butterwick to me, alluding
to his small experience as to pork raising;
ssas matter of economy. Mrs. Butter.
wick said we could feed him on any odds
and ends of old slops that accumulated,
and at the end of the season we could
get meat enough out of him to last us al
winter. But there was no money in it.
and often think the $ reason was that
when I bought him / picked out pig
whose gastric juice was too active. didn'
think to ask the man about the pigs
gastric juice. He was the hungriest pig
I ever saw. There was something SUI
pernatural about his appetite. I'd take
him down, couple of buckets of slop, and
when he'd eaten it I'd chuck in half a
barrel ofrotten apples, and he'd stow
them away. Then I'd give him half a
bushel of corn and three or four gallons
of sour milk and when they were gone,
he'd look up at. me as much as to say,
you amt halfa man, to be starving a
poor miserable little brute like me to
DEATH He would eat four times his
bulk every twenty-four hours, and then
beside he'd gobble up any cats, or chick
ems, or stray dogs that wandered into
his pen. -.r.--s..-.--,.-..r. p --....,-,....
One time told Mrs. Butterwick that
I was going to give that pig one square
meal, If it put me in bankruptcy. And
so carried him up into the granary and
let him loose among the eight bushels Of
apples and eleven bushels Of unshelled
corn. ..'stz -. .''" --0....~
"In day or two I dropped in to see
how he was making out, and found that
he had cleaned up the. apples and the
corn, had eaten the cobs, and was about
half through with the wooden part of a
moving machine. know mighty we'll
he'd have eaten up that granary from the
foundation to the shingles if he'd only
had time. And the next day. when
Miles, the butcher, was over here, he
took a look in the pen and he says:
'''Butterwick, that's nice pig, but you
ought to fatten him up; he's falling off
for want of feed.' .,'.-a. -~. .s ss.
E'And then you know the blamed pig'd
get SO hungry at night, two or three
hours after eating barrel of slop, that
he'd eat board out of the side of the
pen and go roaring around after some
thing to stay his stomach till morning.
Maybe he'd drop in on Pitmen's potato
pa.ch, and root out every. potato in the
entire plantation, or he'd call at Keyser's
and eat up twelve hundred head of cab
bage or something. And they'd find him
ii.sta,e morning sleaning up against the
fence trying to think where he could go
to scare upa decent breakfast. He was
the blamedest pig ever saw.
''Then they'd send for me, and I'd tie
a string around his leg and try to lead
him home. If wanted to go south, he'd
feel an impulse 10 go north; or if want
ed to proceed eastward, he felt it to be
his duty to pull toward the west. And
if he saw any corn in the field on the way
home, he'd push in under the fence be-
fore could stop him. Then when I'd
climb over SOS to humor him, he'd
change his mind and crawl ouG and get
the rope all tangled in the fence. And
when he came to tree he'd always walk
around it seven or eight times and wind
himself up tight; and then he'd seem to
think that the only way to get loose was
to eat something, and maybe he'd put
away couple Of bricks or a paving
stone. .,..
"But he kept growing thinner. dun
no how it happened P'rhaps he had
something on his mind, or he felt re-
morse. Any way, somehow he fell off in
flesh; but the way he kept up his appe.
tite was amazing. Now, how does pig
eat tubfull of things, and when you
measure him he won't half fill the tub?
Itgets me. I don't pretend to under
stand it. Only I know. mighty we'll
there's no money in It. Lemme see;
counting corn, and apples, and milk, and
damages, and trouble. I should say
about eight hundred dollars. l paid tour
for him that's eight hundred and four
dollars. Well, when we killed him he
panned out, should say, about fifteen
collars worth Of the meanest hams and
sausages, and shoulders, you ever laid
your eyes on. Absolutely not enough
fat on them to grease a griddle with. We
had to buy lard to fry the sausages with.
Positive fact! That meat cost us.abou,
twenty dollars pound, too. So thai
lets me out on hogs. l raise no more
stock. The only time that pig ever did
get to decent size was one day he upse,
beehive, hunting for honey, and ali
the bees turned in and stung him so tina,
he swelled up all over. I wish I'd solo
him then. But that chance is gone. And
no more pigs for me, if you please. I'll
buy my pork slaughtered. Now would'n;
you, if you was mel"
don't vouch for Butterwick's story.