The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-11-09

The idea of family of five keeping q
pig going! The output of one of the
big Minneapolis mills wouldn't satisfy
the cravings of one hog that is feeling
well. He eats all you put before him
in the evening, and then stands with
one foot in the trough and gives one
steady squeal for more until the un-
timely hour of $3.50 in the morning. If
any body sleeps in the house that night
l. won't be for want OF sqaealing effort
on the part of the hog. At half past
three he walks out of the pig-proof pen
and begins roofing up your garden.
You will find him at this task when you
get up in the morning. and he will do
more digging in one night than hired
man will do in three weeks. Then be-
gins the pleasing task of getting
the pig back into the pen again.
This can only be done by STRAIT
egy, although for months the
amateur farmer thinks he can drive it
in with club. But it is easier to
corner the whole pork market of Chica-
60 than to corner one pig that doesn't
feel like being cornered at that par
ticular moment. / knew for a long
time that it was impossible to drive a
pig into its pen between now and next
harvest, but could seldom deny NY
self the fiendish pleasure of heaving
things at him and hitting him now and
then. He never seemed to mind being
hit much-appeared rather to look for
it as a sort of break in the ennui of
the situation. When the axe handle
hit him he merely gave a grunt Of ap-
proval and lodged off in new direc-
ton. For the information of those who
will daily with the hog l may say that
the only way to get him into the pen
again is to pander to his depraved APP
petite and get some swill in pail and
thus lead him gradually onward I'M
til you land him just where you want to.
The pig in his humorous moments is
fond of a practical joke. There is
nothing he loves so much as to lie dur
ing the sunny hours in big mud pud-
die and then come up to the house and
scrape himself off on the newly painted
front porch.
A discriminating public will be
pleased to learn that the pig is very
subject to hog cholera. But even in
this matter his hoggishness is shown.
He takes the cholera just at the close
of the awful summer you have had with
him. after he has utterly ruined your
garden and when he is fit to be killed.
OF course he ought to be killed at the
very start, and happy is the man who
kills him the same day he buys him.
But hog worth twelve dollars as pork
is only fit to kill after you have fed him
fifteen dollars worth of corn. Then he
takes the cholera and dies, and you are
so pleased to find that he is really dead
that you never mind the loss of the
twelve dollars. 1t may surprise my
readers to find that the hog which
was going to live on swill-at the
second table, as it were-has to be
fed corn, but can assure them
that it doesn't surprise them as
much as it does the amateur farmer.
He finds that the hog doesn't fatten on
swill, and on seeking information from
his neighbors he finds that hogs are of
no account unless you feed them corn.
1t hardens the flesh. the real farmer re-
marks, and then incidentally adds that
he has some corn to sell. The next
thing you know he has sold it to you at
ten cents a bushel above the market
price.
This is only thousandth part of what
i know about the peculiar cussedness
of the hog.--DetrOu Free Press.