During this time he has eaten, of things which might possibly have been
sold, perhaps five dollars' worth. At 250 days, with a gain of one pound
a day, he is worth, one year with another, $12.50. This is putting it
too low for my market, but it gives a profit of not less than $6 a head
after paying freight and commissions. It is, then, only a question of
how many to keep and how to keep them. To answer the first half of this
question I would say, Keep just as many as you can keep well. It never
pays to keep stock on half rations of food or care, and pigs are not
exceptions. In answering the other half of the question, how to keep
them, I shall have to go into details of the first building of a piggery
at Four Oaks.
As in the case of the hens, I determined to start clean. Hogs had been
kept on the farm for years, and, so far as I could learn, there had been
no epizooetic disease. The swine had had free range most of the time, and
the specimens which I bought were healthy and as well grown as could be
expected. They were not what I wanted, either in breed or in
development, so they had been disposed of, all but two.
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