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Show FIELD. FARM AND GARDEN. FATTENING SWINE. A" writer in tho 2Sew York Times says that although he raises a good many hogs he is not an advocate of a steady pork diet, and is free to say that the farming community would fare better if more beef and mutton, and leas pork, were consumed. Spare ribs and onions are good for those who are out-doors mo3t of the time, and whose stomachs are of the ostrich kind; and boiled pork and cabbage are relished by hard workers in cold climates; but to make fried pork the staple dish, as it is in some families, 1 is not conducive to the normal development de-velopment of the children, nor to the health of the household, certainly to the feminine and moresedentary part of lt . This leads us to say that for our own use we never fatten unything but spring pies. It takes better feed and more care to make pork from a Eit; than on old hog, but the pork is etter, and the work is accomplished . in nine months instead of eighteen. The advocates of fattening old hogs seem to forget that they feed twelve months or more before they begin to fatten, and that store pies cannot live upon air and water. If the quality and quantity of food consumed by an eighteen months' hog and nine months' pig be compared, the advantage ad-vantage will be found on the aide of the pig for equal amounts of pork produced. , Not all domestic pork 13 fattened in the most approved manner. Multitudes Mul-titudes seem to suppose that filth is congenial to a hog; that he will thrive in the mud and only ask a bare board for his couch. The truth is that the hoe, and indeed all animals ani-mals in their wild state, are cleanly, avoid all filth, and choose a soft and tidy place, in which to sleep. As to the feed, there is nothing which can compare with milk lor the yourjg pigs, and good old corn for the last few weeks of the porker's life. Of course it will not pay to feed pure milk to pigs, but the skimmed milk has more virtue in it than is generally supposed. A good feeder manages never to clog hia pigs with one kind of food, but always stimulates stimu-lates their appetites with different courses potatoes atone time, apples at another, aud pumpkin-pudding, thickened with meal, at another, always winding up the fattening process with dry corn on the ear to produce solid pork. Some kinds of food we should cook, and some we should not. Apples are best uncooked, un-cooked, as they lose much of their . aroma and stimulating influence by being heated. Cooking enables us to serve up a greater number of dishes, and we should, therefore, always have a cauldron set in the pi? pen, and if properly set the amount of fuel required is small. The cauldron, however, need not be used for the last few days of the pig's life, nor should we in these days give him any water. One of the important things in feeding hogs, and indeed all animals, is to feed regularly. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. The frequent use of apples, either before or after meals, has a most healthful efiect upon digestion better eat less meat and more fruit. An eminent French physician thinks ; that the decrease of dyspepsia and billions affections in Paris is owing to the increased consumption of apples which fruit he maintains is an admirable ad-mirable prophylactic and tonic, as well as a very nourishing and easily digested article of food. The Parisians are said to devour 100,000,000 of apples every winter that is, they did before the war. Whether this estimate is true or not, nevertheless the .French are extravagantly fond of apples and other fruits. A well known breeder of ligbt brahmas records it as his experience that from a large rooster you get large chickens, acd from a small one, small chickens. He adds: "I know this is so. I don't care if you have only ?ix - pound hens, if ywu have a twelve-pound cock you will get big chickens." It is well known to physicians and others who have invecticated the subject that not only the quantity but aiso the quality of milk depends on the manner in which cows are treated. treat-ed. If starved, frozen, or kept without with-out tunhine, exercise, or companions, compan-ions, or worried by dngs, or improperly improp-erly fed or permitted to drink impure im-pure water, or kept in the foul air oi unclean or improperly ventilated stables, or otherwise cruelly treated, their milk and its products are liable to produce sickness and may produce death. In a recent agricultural report it is stated that one lady bought four hives for $10 and in fivo years she was offered $1,500 for her stock and refused it as not enough. In addition ad-dition to this increase of her capital, in one of these five years she sold twenty-two hives and 430 pounds of honey. At a recent meeting of the Fulton Farmer's Club, Pa., the question was asked, "How much salt should be put in a pound of butter?" One answered answered half an ounce; another gave the recipe of Sharplesa, a noted dairyman of Chester County, Pa., which ia one ounce of salt to uiroe pounds of butter. |