Page:The Hog.djvu/186

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184
THE HOG.

necessity of procuring two loads of apple pomace from his neighbors, and commencing the steaming and feeding again; it was continued with the same good effect until eight days before the animals were killed, during which latter period they were fed with sound corn; they were slaughtered on the 1st of December. The expense of fattening and the produce of pork were as follows:—

Dr. Dolls. Cts.
32 bushels of small potatoes, at 25 cts. 8 00
32 bushels of ruta-baga, including pumpkins, at 25 cts. 8 00
10 bushels of soft corn, at 50 cts. 5 00
10 cwt. of buckwheat* at $1 per cwt. 10 00
20 bushels of sound corn, at 80 cts. 16 00
47 25
Cr. Dolls. Cts.
By 40 cwt. of pork, at $71/2 per cwt. 300 00
Deduct expense, 47 00
Balance, 252 75."

It is true that we have not often a superabundance of apples; but still in years when the crop is plentiful, the windfalls, diseased or injured apples, and the refuse left after the making of cider, may be given to the pigs, and will prove a fair substitute for more expensive food, if not in itself peculiarly advantageous; especially when economy in the keep is more studied than a rapid system of fattening.

Nuts should never be given to swine; they make the fat soft and greasy, and impart a sweet, unpleasant flavor to the flesh. Pigs are, however, exceedingly fond of them; so much so, that when they can get nuts they care little to touch any other kind of food.

GRAIN.

There is nothing so nutritious, so eminently and in every way adapted for the purpose of fattening, as are the various kinds of grain; the only drawback is that they are too expensive to be used to any great extent for this purpose, otherwise no animal should be considered as properly fattened unless some kind of grain had been given during the latter part of the time; as nothing tends more to create a firmness as well as delicacy in the flesh. It has been calculated that for every bushel, half of peas, and half of barley, that a hog eats, it gains from nine to ten or eleven pounds of flesh.

Two pigs of about eight months old, were purchased and put up to fatten on the 23d of December, 1834; they then weighed 316 lbs. They were put into a warm sty and fed on rye and corn-meal, having three regular feeds per diem, of two quarts each, up to the following October, when they received three quarts at each feed, or