Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1883-01-04
Feeding Pigs.

pigs Is D OuSlUcSS dSdluSt WAtCA tuCtO a
an absurd prejudice in the minds OF
some persons who are not farmers. In
ancient times there was prejudice even
against the pigs themselves. We read
in the Scriptures that when the prodi-
gal son had fallen to the lowest depths
of his degradation and misery he was
engaged in feeding swine. But busi-
ness to great extent is made low and
vulgar and degrading by the manner in
which it is performed. And we also
had nothing better to feed the swine
with than husks. Certainly that was q
poor business, and would be considered
low and ''ornery' by the lowest and
poorest American farmer in existence.
high degree which not only engages the
attention of our best farmers and stock
breeders, who keep herd-boOk for en-
tering the pedigrees of the first families,
but also that of capitalists and business
men, and spectators who make corners
in pork, and statisticians who figure up
the amounts and values of pork pro-
ducts, besides the most eminent chemists
and investigators in science, and more
over of statesmen at home and abroad,
who find occasion for diplomatic squab-
bles on account of the American pig
and his valuable products. And we
might also note to what large extent
the pig enters into the calculations of
the great bankers and money -dealers
and how its value as pork, bacon, lard,
and hams becomes a most serious
element in the financial system, and
sometimes turns stream of gold hither
or away, and raises or lessons the value
of all the property in the country. For
this animal, individually scorned and
made an object of disgust and its name
a by-word and reproach, is collectively
worth, 500, ,0O0- per~~annum, and
then becomes an object of respect, if
not of worship-an example of what so
much money will do for q hog-or
man, even-to raise it or him in the
public estimation. And just at this
time there are about one million farm
ers engaged in fattening their swine and
preparing them to enter into commerce,
and become an object of regard to
several millions more, who will have
more or less to do with them before the
products enter into wide and general
consumption as food, and in this fatten-
ing there may be loss or profit, which
may have an important bearing upon
the aggre gate wealth of the country.
and more especially upon the farmers
engaged in the business.
There have been a great number of
scientific investigations in regard to the
feeding of pigs and the making of pork,
and the most skillful scientific men have
been engaged in them. Besides this
scientific and accurate information, a
great number of scattering tests have
been inside, SO many of which, however,
have been undertaken in an uncertain
and some have been so absurdly
imperfect that a great deal of contra
dictory evidence has been brought for
ward which has led to error, confusion,
and no doubt to loss and waste. For
instance, the question is often asked if it
is better to feed corn whole or ground,
or dry, stepped, Or cooked, for making
pork, and there is so much divergence |
of opinion in regard to it that one may
be very easily msled unless the whole |
case and the whole evidence are studied, |
and even then the result is such as not |
to be applicable to many cases that are
always occurring.
There are many points for considera-
ton in dealing with this question. Food |
makes flesh and fat only when it is COM |
pletely digested. 1t is only then that |
food enters into the blood and renews |
It's substance and produces muscular
and fatty tissue. And the digestion of
Eood depends not only upon the char
acter of the food itself, bat upon the
health of the animnl and the manner in
which the food is eaten. Let us con-
'ider the latter first. Digestion begins
n the mouth, which is the beginning of
he alimentary canal. The digestive
agent here is the saliva, which is a COM
dictated fluid secreted from the salivarv
glands, and which has the property of /
starch into sugar. There is
every reason to believe that starch is not
ligested until it is SO changed, and that
his change, begun in the mouth, is fully
affected in the stomach and intestiues
~ means of the bile and the pancreatic
uice. The albun1inoid portion of the
God is digested in the stomach and in
estines, and finally dissolved in the
liver as it passes through that organ
nto the blood. The dissolved food
md the fat emulsified by the pancreatic
uice and poured into the great thoracic
luct, by which they are carried into the
ungs, and thence the fluid is poured
INTO the arterial system, by which it is
transported to the fine capillary vessels.
from these the fibrine which is held in
solution by the serum of the blood passes
through their walls and is taken up by
he cells of the muscular tissue and in
'reases their growth and substance.
he latter process is that of assimilation,
which is the actual addition of muscular
ubstance and fat to the body. This
,eneral view of the process of digestion
ives but faint idea of its Importance,
md also of the delicacy and complicat-
ID character of it, but will explain in
ONE degree how it is that the results of
in feeding are so often con-
radictory and unsatisfactory unless
made by practiced and skillful persons.
Henry StesOart, in N. Y. Times.
-Workmen while digging in Upper
hanover Township, Montgomery Coun-
Y, Pa, recently exhumed the bones Of
human body, which are supposed to