The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1889-08-29
Raising Pork.

Do not keep the swine penned up in
summer. Do not incite in causing
them to take extra exercise In hot
weather if they are fat IT will do
them good to give them chance to
root. The hog is naturally rooter.
Give them grass, apples, fruits of any
kind for which you have no use. Hogs
fatten rapidly on sweet corn. Feed
them green stalks, even II you have
other uses for the corn. Sugar-cane
and sorghum are similar in value to
sweet corn. Swine will eat many
weeds to their own advantage and OF
course to the advantage of the land.
In an article in the Agriculturist Mr..
F. ID. Curtis expresses the Stockman' 8
ideas very nearly in the matter OF
feeding. He says that the cheap
est food makes the best pork.
The reason is. it is the lean
est Lean pork then being the
best, we should try to make it. Con-
finement In pens tends to increase the
fat. Exercise develops the muscles.
The muscular part is the best food.
The fat is largely waste. We make
fat to throw it away. People buy
hams, not for the fat, but for the lean.
When the fat is wasted it makes the
lean cost just so much more. Reduce
the fat and increase the lean. Can this
be done? Certainly. In this way:
Keep the pigs all their lives in the
pasture. Feed skim-milk and bran.
Keep corn away from them. Give
them vegetables and apples with the
bran. When the bodies or frames are
grown. give them oatmeal or rye,
ground entire, mixed with bran, put
ting in twice as much bran as rye.
Keep up the vegetable and apple diet,
and allow them during this time
to eat all the grass they will
little corn may DO fed
toward the end. Pork made
in this way will have more lean, and
be tender and juicy. At Kirby Home
stead, by using turnips, they have pro-
duced hams seventy-tive per cent. lean.
The fat is something more than mere
lard-animal oil. 1t is meat, with the
substance and grain of meat To get
such pork is worth trying for, and it is
in demand. The sausage and the other
food products made from such pig
meat are superior in quality and taste.
There is a tenderness and flavor which
enhances the value. Pigs should not
be fed so much or gorged to such an
extent that they will not go out into
the pasture. An active pig will make
better meat than helpless one-made
so by lack of true muscle and vigor.
II is advisable to plant apple trees
for early ripening, in order to give
the pigs a start. Fifty trees OF this
kind have been set this year at Kirby
Homestead, including twenty Early
Harvest. Apples do not make fat
pork, but they do make plenty of lean
meat, and that Of extra quality. Pump
kins can be utilized in the same way.
Gradually the requirements of con-
sumers for more lean pork will open
the eyes of farmers to the fact that
the consumers are right and we will
have less Of the greasy. indigestible
animated lard tubs called "early ma
tured pork" THE most weight in
the shortest time" is a heresy which
has broken down lots of American
stomachs and set thousands OF people
against pork. There is no animal on
the farm which can be turned to bet
ter account than the hog to utilize
wastes and cheap foods. and as a
factor for enriching the farm. For a
steady diet give the pig grass. Ma
tional Stockman.