Page:The Hog.djvu/203

201 markets render easy the disposal both of fat and lean stock. There are seven sties at the end of the steaming-house which accommodate a boar and six brood sows, which are calculated to produce yearly one hundred pigs, sixty of which will be fattened from September to April in fifteen sties, placed in two parallel rows, and made to contain two hogs in each apartment. The rest are sold as stores. The yearly rental is from 200l. to 250l. according to the prices of the produce. The steamed food consists of potatoes and meal, with grain to finish, and is conveyed to the sties along a paved road or path, in a small four-wheeled wagon. The steamer also cooks potatoes for the working horses, and chaff for milch cows, and thus applies the original cost to several purposes, and fully employs a man. The store pigs are fed in summer with clover and vetches, and in winter with roots either raw or steamed. Water is brought to the steaming-house in a pipe from the farm-yards, which are all supplied by ball-cocks from elevated casks fed by a forcing-pump. A pipe underneath conveys the water from the potato-washer to the pond in the store-yard, where it passes to the lower curve of the yard, and then meeting with the collected moisture of the whole area of the piggery, falls through an iron grate into a paved culvert, and is conveyed to the manure-pit, to which the liquid of the farmery is collected and brought by a drain; along the side of the road are sheds opening into the store-yard. The cost of erecting a piggery like this will vary from 80l. to 100l., according to the price of labor and materials, and to whether the roofs be tiled or slated. The steaming-house has an upper floor to serve as a store-house for grain, meal, roots, &c. The piggery should always be built as near to that part of the establishment from which the chief part of provision is to come as possible, as much labor will thus be saved. If the dairy is to supply this, let it be as near as may be to that building; or if it is to come from a brewery or distillery, then let it be near to them.

Care must also be taken to preserve the dung and urine, and some place fixed in which these matters can be stored for manure. Wherever the swine are regularly and well managed, this will not be difficult, for the animals will always, if they can, lay their dung at a distance from the place where they sleep or feed. A small paved yard, somewhat sloping, and with a gutter to serve as a receptacle, will best answer this purpose, and thence it can be daily removed to the proper heap or tank.

We have been told of a gentleman who keeps only a few pigs for his own use, and has a double sty for them, by which means he is enabled to keep them exceedingly clean and sweet. Every morning the pigs are changed from one into the other, so that each sty remains unoccupied for four-and-twenty hours, during which time it is thoroughly cleaned out, and of course becomes well aired, and free