Gazette Of The United States

TO FARMERS.

To the Philadelphia County Society, for the promotion of Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures.

GENTLEMEN,

IT is with pleasure I communicate an experiment I lately made, to discover the best method of raising young hogs: Having frequently been informed that pigs would thrive best to be turned into a good clover field with the sow, but which never verified by my own observation I was induced to make the following accurate experiment.

A sow two years old, of the English and Guinea breed, had seven pigs; at a month old, in a state proper to be weaned, and to make good roasters, with the sow into a field of ten acres very luxuriant with red and white clover, with some little timothy and blue grass. In short they could not be in better pasture, to this they had the advantage of shade, a fine spring of water to drink or wallow in at pleasure, and the common wash of the kitchen; their weight when turned out was 11, 12 and 13 lb. the remaining four were put into a stable by themselves. They had plenty of clean straw and as much skimmed milk as they could drink, the weight of three of them was 9, 10 & 13 lb. the result of the experiment was, that in three weeks time from their being put up, those with the sow with all the advantages above-mentioned, and the milk of the seven, weighed 16, 17 and 19 lb. the three in the stable, 25, 22, and 19 lb. which together make 14 pounds weight in favor of the latter, to which we should also add the four pounds against them when first put up, which added make 18 lbs. superior to the former.

Our farmers, in general, are too negligent of their young stock of every kind, it is customary for them to suffer the mother and young to shift for themselves; all animals grow in the inverse ratio to their age, and therefore the younger they are, the more necessary to give them plenty of food, if you desire them to acquire the full growth of which their nature is capable. An animal stunted when young never thrives afterwards equal to those which have had justice done them. I am satisfied from a little experience, that a stricter attention to the raising of our cattle and stock of all kinds would give us a breed on our farms equal to any in the world, and would at the same time add greatly to our own wealth and that of our country.

I am Gentlemen,

Your friend,

GEORGE LOGAN.

Stenton, June 25, 1789.