Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1910-04-28

We hive set apart a 40-acre piece
of land so rods square that we will in
the future use exclusively as a rota-
ton of hog pastures. As indicated by
the accompanying illustration, the 40
acres is divided into four equal sized
fields with lane two rods wide be-
tween each field, leaving each field
exactly 1872 rods wide and so rods
long, writes l.. p Martiny, in Home
stead. These four fields are inclosed
with a permanent fence. In our case,
raising hogs entirely for breeding pur-
poses, we use a woven wire fence
with nine longitudinal bars Sc inches
high. All corner and end posts are Sc
cured in position by digging the post
hole in the ordinary manner to the
| depth of four feet The post is then
put in position and the hole filled with
wet concrete mixed in the proportion
of one part best Portland cement to
| eight or ten parts of good clean.
coarse gravel. This may seem like
very small proportion of cement, and
1t certainly would be for ordinary con-
| crete work, but being in the ground it
| cannot get away and forms perfect
| ly hard mass, which is all that is re-
quired. We reinforce this concrete by
| putting in a couple of coils of two to
| three strands of old barb wire to hold
the whole mass intact. as it has
| tendency to crack or split by the great
| strain we put on the post in stretch
| ing the fencing. With the use of this
concrete we use no brace or brace
posts whatever to support the end
| Vosts, thus simplifying the construc-
| ton of the fence to a considerable eX-
tent Besides the posts will be pre-
| served longer in the concrete than if
| placed in the soil
| Each field has six gates at equal dis
tances apart along one side of the
| pasture and a large post is set in con-
crete in the fence on the other side OF
the field. opposite each gate so thai
a temporary fence may be placed be.
| tween one of the gate posts and the
| post on the opposite side of the field,
thus subdividing each field as occa-
sion may demand We aim to divide
our pigs so that there are not more
than 20 to % pigs in each lot.
Our plan of rotation is to have a
piece of new seeding of mixture OF
medium and alsike clover with little
timothy as pasture for the pigs In
the next lot we SOW Canada field peas.
which thrive very well in our climate
and soil. On our soil we prefer to
leave the land fall plowed AS early
in the spring as the land is ready to
work we disk the land in good shape
and SOW the peas with a drill at the
rate of 2h bushels per acre. drilling
them in as deeply as possible and
finishing with a fine smoothing har-
row.
From the tenth to the fifteenth of
July the peas will be full grown and
the peas begin to harden, at which
time we turn the pigs into the field of
peas to hog them off, still allowing
them the run of the clover pasture
This field of peas with the addition of
a very little or no other feed will last
the pigs very nicely until about the
middle OF September. when the pigs
will be in a very thrifty condition &;
|
and muscle on account of the rich pro.
tein feed furnished them by the peas
In the next field to the peas we
plant a rather early maturing variety
of corn which will come to perfect
maturity by the middle of September
or first of October This corn field
will be where we had the clover pas
ture the year previous. which will put
1t in fine condition for the crop OF
corn We lay the corn by rather early
cultivating it the last time soon after
the first of July. and sowing about five
pounds of rape seed per acre at the
last cultivation. The pigs are turned
in the field of corn from September Is
to October /. when they are in just
the right condition to- make very rapid
and cheap gains. The rape in the
corn will make a good growth during a
favorable season and will serve as a
variety and relish for the hogs away
on into winter. In the fourth field
which will be where we grew peas the
year previous, we will SOW barley and
seed down to clover and timothy with
the barley We harvest the barley in
the usual manner, thresh and grind it
The reason we use barley in this field
is because 1t is about the safest croI
to seed which we have, and we are
very anxious to get a good catch of
the clover seeding. In this rotation
we have, first, clover pasture one year
then corr, then Canada field peas