Living Off the Land pigs each ~ and if this were done as the experiments we this day publish most satisfactorily prove can be done with less than half the corn now commonly used, we need not make any minute calculations to prove the profit of such business even without any increase in the average number raised to each breeding sow. The trick, it seems, was how best to feed hogs. Rather than toss corncobs into the mud for them to munch on, the author argues that cooked corn mash will pay off handsomely and be well worth the investment. Anticipating objections to this additional labor and expense, he takes them on squarely. First, he scoffs at the extra bother. But we shall be told that this method will involve a great deal of trouble in sending to mill, &c. and expense in buying and setting up boilers and getting wood &c. Ec. Well, gentlemen, fold your arms and go to sleep; if you can sleep when hungry. And is it not worth a little trouble to save half the corn you now use to your hogs? The author addressed the cost objections rather more carefully ~ and persuasively. With boiled corn, hogs can be fattened with just half the amount (then $2 a bushel), a savings that quickly recovers the one-time investment in boilers. Breaking down the kernels apparently aids in digestion.
And as to the expense, let us look into it a little. If you fatten forty hogs in the common (nay, universal) mud fashion, that will average 150 weight, they will eat you not less than 80 barrels of corn ~ half this even now will sell for $80 ~ and $80 will buy the boilers, bricks, and lime, and pay for setting them up. That is, you will be nothing out of pocket the very first year; and forty barrels of corn better off every year after. If you fatten fewer hogs the fixes will cost less. If you fatten a larger number, the saving will be of more consequence. If the boilers are tolerably set up, 5 cords of dry pine wood, worth $2 a cord, will cook amply for a hundred fattening hogs for two months. The article concluded with an appeal for field trials ~ and a forceful injunction: We really hope these experiments will excite the attention they well merit ~ and that their truth will be tested by accurate and well conducted ex periments. But we protest against all slovenly, dirty, inattentive, miserable, half way attempts or trials. This article illustrates how criti-
142