nine quarts a-day for about a month. From that time until the 7th of December, 1835, a period of five weeks, their feeds were raised another quart, making now twelve quarts a-day. Besides this they had the refuse of the milk of two cows, and occasionally a very little green meat. When slaughtered, they weighed 1134 lbs., which, allowing for one-third of offal, will amount to the gain of about 312 lbs. of live weight per day. They ate in the whole, fifty bushels of rye and corn ground; in cold weather it was scalded and given to them warm, and in the summer, put into the trough and milk poured upon it. (The Cultivator, vol. ii.)
There are also repeated instances in which the animals have increased in weight 2 lbs., 212 lbs., and even 3 lbs. a day, while fed on barley-meal only, or barley-meal and peas, or potatoes; the relative prices, however, of grain and pork will always decide the question of the advantage of this mode of feeding far better than volumes of experiments or comments.
Barley and oats are considered to be best adapted for fattening swine. Some persons give the preference to oats, and where the grain is given whole they certainly are more digestible and less heating; but ground barley or barley meal is universally allowed to be the most nutritious of all food.
There are various ways of giving grain to swine:—Raw and dry, roasted or malted, bruised and macerated, boiled, green, and growey or germinating wheat; and, lastly, ground to meal or farina. Of these the first two are the least advantageous, as the grain is then often but imperfectly masticated, and consequently produces indigestion. Wherever it is thus given the animals must be well supplied with water. A little whole grain given once a-day, or every other day, to pigs fed on barleymeal, is considered to be beneficial and add to the firmness of the flesh.
Macerated grain is better, or rather would be if the animals would eat it freely, which they seldom will do. Its fattening properties are increased if, after maceration, it is suffered to lie and germinate, and then dried or malted; or left to stand in the water until the whole turns sour.
Many persons consider that grain boiled until the husk bursts is better adapted for feeding swine in this form than when ground, and is likewise more economical; the only difference, however, in this latter respect, will depend upon whether the expense of having it ground be greater or less than that of the fuel necessary to boil it.
It is our opinion that the best, most economical and advantageous form in which grain can be used, is that of meal moistened with water, whey or sour or skim-milk, into a kind of soup or porridge. The fluid, whatever it may be, which is in the first place poured upon it, should never be more than lukewarm, and had better be quite cold; hot or boiling liquid will cause the meal to conglomerate into
