STORE HOGS.
"Of store hogs little need be said they are intended either for sale, or as future bacon hogs. They should be kept in fair condition, not too low, and their health should be attended to; they should be allowed to run in the fields or in the woods and copses, when the beechmast or acorns are falling, and be regularly and moderately fed at certain intervals, say in the morning and evening; knowing their feeding times, by habit, they will never willingly be absent, and wherever they may ramble during the day, their return at the appointed time in the evening may be safely calculated upon. After their evening meal they should be secured in their sty, and snugly bedded up.
HOGS FATTENING FOR BACON
"Bacon-hogs (we here except breeding sows, destined after two or three litters for the butcher) are generally put up to fatten at the age of twelve or eighteen months. Under the term bacon-hogs, we include the barrows and spayed females chosen by the breeder or feeder for fattening, after the age admissible as porkers. In the fattening of bacon-hogs much judgment is requisite. It will not answer to over-feed them at first; under such a plan they will loses their appetite, become feverish, and require medicine. They should be fed at regular intervals; this is essential; animals fed regularly thrive better than those fed at irregular intervals, nor should more food be given them at each meal than they will consume. They should be sufficiently satisfied, yet not satiated. It would be as well to vary their diet; midlings, peas, potato-meal, and barley-meal may be given alternately, or in different admixtures with wash, whey, butter-milk, skim-milk, and the occasional addition of cut grasses, and other green vegetables; a little salt should be scattered in their mess—it will contribute to their health, and quicken their appetite; a stone trough of clean water should be accessible, and the feeding-troughs should be regularly cleaned out after every meal. The sty should be free from all dirt, and the bed of straw comfortable; indeed, it is an excellent practice to wash and brush the hides of the animals, so as to keep the skin clean, excite the circulation of the cutaneous vessels and open the pores. Pigs thus treated will fatten more kindly than dirty, scurfy animals put upon better fare. This essential point is greatly neglected, from the too common idea that the pig is naturally a filthy brute, than which nothing can be more untrue; it is the keeper who is filthy, and not the animal, if he constrain a pig to wallow in a disgusting sty.
"Too many pigs should not be fed in the same sty; three are sufficient, and they should be, as far as possible, of the same age;
