What is wanted is to unite, so far as possible, the early maturity and the facility to take on fat of the Suffolk, the Chinese, or the Essex, with a tendency at the same time to make flesh as well as fat; or, in other words, to attain a good growth and size, and to fatten easily when the time comes to put them down. The Chinese or the Suffolk are but ill adapted for hams and bacon; but, crossed upon the kind of hog already described, the produce will be likely to be valuable.
The most judicious practical farmers are new fully satisfied, I think, that the tendency, for the last ten years, in the Eastern States more especially, has been to breed too fine; and that the result of this error has been to cover our swine with fat at a very early age, and before they have attained a respectable size. In other words, the flesh and bone have been too far sacrificed to fat. A reäction has already taken place in the opinions on this point, and perhaps some caution may be necessary, that it does not load too far in the opposite direction.
Some practical dairymen think that with a dairy of twenty or thirty cows they can keep from forty to fifty swine, by turning into the orchard or the pasture, in early spring, and as pigs, where they will easily procure a large part of their food, till the close of fall, when they are taken in and fed up gradually at first, but afterward more highly, and fattened as rapidly and turned as soon as possible.
Others say there is no profit in working hogs, and that they should be kept confined and constantly and rapidly growing up to the time of turning them for pork, growing steadily, but not laying on too much fat till fed up to it.
I am inclined to think the farmers of the Eastern States confine their swine too closely; and that, while still kept as store-pigs, a somewhat greater range in the orchard, or the pasture, would prove to be good economy, particularly up to the age of eight or nine months.
The judicious dairyman will study the taste and demands of the market where his pork is to be sold. If he supplies a city customer, he knows he must raise a fine and delicate quality of pork; and to do this he must select stock that will early arrive at maturity, and that will bear forcing ahead and selling young. If he supplies a market where large amounts of pork are salted and packed for shipping, or for bacon, a larger and coarser hog, fed to greater age and weight, will turn to better advantage, though I think a strain of finer blood will even then be profitable to the feeder. In either case, the refuse of the dairy is of considerable value, and should be saved with scrupulous care, and judiciously fed. “Many a little makes a mickle.”
APPENDIX.
The following is Mr. Thomas Horsfall’s statement, referred to on [page 138], with the omission of a few passages, relating to matters not immediately connected with the dairy. It is entitled
THE MANAGEMENT OF DAIRY CATTLE.