Sharp County record., 1885-06-25
ROOT CROPS AND HOGS.

A Prominent Breeders Opinion OF the
Value of Roots AS "a Factor in Raising
Hogs for Profit.
Hogs gorged with corn are STUPID an
inactive. They hardly stir enough to
fill their lungs with pure oxygen, and
as many of them are kept they never do
it, for pure air they never breathe. The
fumes of filth, manure or decaying corn
cobs always tint the surrounding at
mosphere, and this they breathe al
ways. Out in pasture the air Is
purer, and this OF itself helps wonder
fully in making perfect body. Such
care makes appetite, and hogs Will
eat coarser food with more varied ele-
ments, and so all parts of the system
will be built up, This doubtless sounds
like simple talk to man who shovels
the corn from a double-boXed wagon
on top of cobS two or three feet deep
and his hogs on top of them, but it is
system which enables me to rear each
year, at a profit, from one to two hun
dred hogs.
This winter / have twenty-SiX breed
inc sOws and a lot of shOats, and last
year only raised an acre of corn. My
faith in roots is sufficient to convince
me that this year the farm must pro-
duce twice as many as last year. These
are fed to the hogs from the time grass
fails in the autumn till it comes again.
They are cooling andappetizing and food
enough for hog one year old. | kept
lot Of breeding sowS one winter on
Swedish turnipS sliced and fed raw,
and they all had strong pigs and did
well. One or two feelings on grain
with the roots is better and makes a
more complete food. | only speak of
this as showing the possibilities ofroots,
and of kind the chemists say are nine
ty per cent. of water. If this is so the
water is better than they suppose. Does
it never occur to our American farmers
that their British neighbors have way
of making mighty good beef and mutton
out of the same kind of water? 1t is GER
tainly better than lots of the water
found in the holes hogs are compelled
to drink out of. This is more of ques-
ton than our farmers think They make
light of it, and compel their hogs to live
on corn, and drink water full of all
sorts of poiSons, vegetable and animal,
and they wonder at disease coming
among them. | believe that such
courses often produce epidemics, and
once started they extend to other hogs
which may be apparently healthy. The
fattest hog is not always the strongest,
but, on the contrary, it may have the
least vital force.
Where this forcing system is kept up
for years it must result in conStitu-
tional weakness. 1t is called early
maturity" and under this popular and
delusive guise fat is piled on just as
though it contained elements of
strength and propagation, My mans
sow, always poor because closely kept,
always has strong and healthy pigs,
and the farmers who buy them come
back for more. Making pork ana rear
ing breeders are two separate affairs,
and call for different systems. The
eye is made the basis of style and
looks for the Tree Ter, whereas it
should be the head, or the sense which
should be in it The pig which is kept
growing, with perfect development
of all its parts, and not filled up with
fat, will not look so well when it
reaches the point of shipment, but in
the end it will give better satisfaction
if the breeder has philosophy enough
in him to look ahead and take in re-
suits. f D. Curtis, IN Breeders
Gazette