Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/768

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��Fopular Science Monthly

��Hog-Power in the Hog-Pen

AN amusing sight can be witnessed on . some of the large farms, where hogs in large quantities are raised, in the south and west. Large vertical gal-

���The hog smears himself with an insecti- cide by rubbing against the roller

vanized-iron cylinders may be seen to revolve in the hog-pens, while the hogs, in numbers of ten or twelve at a time, trot busily around a cylinder, always in the same direc- tion and sometimes at a speed nearly approaching a gallop. At first blush this procedure may seem like a recreation. But, the hogs are not playing at some new game; they are preparing their meal of ground grain, and the hog that is too lazy to trot and grind goes hungry.

In the upper part of this re- volving cylinder is a hopper Or compartment into which the grain is poured. When the cylinder is revolved, a grind- ing mechanism chops the grain into fine particles suited to the palate of a well-bred hog. To secure this prepared grain the hogs must supply the motive power for grinding; and they supply it — with their snouts. A ring-like trough is attached to the bottom of the cylinder. Short wooden paddles project from the edge of the tank into the trough, and when pressure is applied to them they revolve the tank, grinding the grain, so that it flows in equal amounts

���Another apparatus by means of

which the hogs apply insecticide

to themselves and save time and

trouble for the farmer

��into the spaces between the paddles. This grain feeder is virtually a "one- hog-power" machine as one energetic hog can revolve it.

Again, if you ever see a number of hogs pushing and jostling about a small device standing in the middle of a hog- pen, the object of their attentions may well be an apparatus which makes the hogs work to rid themselves of vermin, instead of forcing the farmer to spend weary hours spraying them with an insecticide.

The device consists of a steel roller set in a receptacle which is partially filled with an oily insecticide. The pigs find that when the vermin are troubling them, it is only necessary to rub against the roller, to end the trouble.

The appreciation of the hogs for these modern conveniences is absurdly com- ical in its actual working out, but these and similar hog inventions have done as much to make farming profitable in these mod- ern days as many of the much more pretentious machines. The hog-pen takes up the slack end of the farm, and any de- vices which make them yet more independent of attention are vitally im- portant. These appli- ances come the nearest to making hogs work of anything yet discovered.

���The hogs prepare their own meals by revolving the cylinder with their snouts. As the cylinder turns, it grinds the grain to feed the hogs. Lazy hogs go hungry

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