Arizona silver belt., 1895-07-27
GRASS ON A HOG.
A Museum Mans Scheme for
 Gulling the Public.
The PorIser Converted Into Sort of PerambulatinE Lawn--Bright Green Blades Where Bristles Ought
 to Grow.

the curiously inclined might have had the privilege of seeing recently in q little museum way down in the French quarter no less curio than a hog sporting a complete and bona fide crop of grass all over his body lin de place whar de har ought to grow"
 This sounds like the most preposter- ous thing on record, writes a corre- spondent of the Philadelphia Times, and so your correspondent conceived it to be until he came to the point of sacri- ficing a dime on the altar of his in credulity, and beheld with his own eyes the wonder The animal appeared to be q well-grown nine or ten-months' shoat of the Essex breed, with the usual broad back, chubby neck and short legs, but from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail he was bristling with as perfect fresh green grass as the finest lawn mixture is warranted to produce.
 The exhibitor from time to time clipped stray bit of grass from the hogs abundant crop and passed it around for inspection. l am willing to testify on oath that it was the genuine article and no mistake, and the more gazed the more the wonder grew that one short hog should wear so strange a hue, till finally my curiosity got the better of my purse strings and l clipped in with some other fellows and got the man to let as on to the fake.
 Easy enough explained, said the ex- hibitor as he began to spray the animat- ed grass plot with small rubber bulb which he held constantly in his hand. Just step behind here and take a close look at the hog. Mind how you handle him. though, or you may break him all up. Seems to be pretty good thick ness of earth twixt him and the grass, don't there? Yes Well, that's just it. Grass grows in dirt and nowhere else, SO all you've got to do is to get enough ofitto stick to hog and hell make you about as good lawn as you'd find any where almost
 That's straight 50 faras it goes, but, of course, there is q good deal more Co it before you can work up such an ar ticlc as this here. In the first place you have got to get the right kind of a hog l generally use q Berkshire or an Essex. because tlIcy are good and broad and you can feed 'em up To be pretty lazy This is necessary, of course, as q frislSy hog is not liable to hold mud or water either for long time. The next step is to get the right kind of soil
 Now, l always use dirt collected from ant hills, but this is an old dodge borrowed from the East Indian jug. Clcrs, who can make mango sprout and grow six or seven feet in as many minutes, Scientists say that it is the tormlc acid m earth which causes seed Co burst and the germ To develop when placed therein and this acid is freely generated by the ant Pour cupful oi hot water over a handful of the insects and 10 will become as sour as vinegar
 of course it is easy enough to get . layer of soil about an inch thick called up on q hog, and 8 little training will teach him 10 keep it there ull right I put ring in this fellows nose and tie him up short so that he cant slsirnish around. and that's about all. ] plan, my seed, which sprout and come up in about a weeks time, for haven't quite gotten up tO the iugglers minute per. fornanees yet So there's your hog as big as life and as green as grass.
 ''l have several hogs which I use at different times as it would not do to keep one with his pores stopped up too long. Sometimes, too, I vary the mo- notouy by planting small low-growing Mowers instead of grass, and once I rigged up a vagary with sprig of smi- lax for the tail, little eoleus plants making the stars and stripes on either side, and 8 arazer-bacIs ofpansics running between. But that did not govery well. The fake was too obvious, and ! lost trade by it. Since then l have confined myself almost entirely to grass, which seems to 20 somehow. perhaps owing to the general Freenness of the public