With a view to fattening hogs, the corn employed should be ground into meal, and in the proportion of five bushels to 100 gallons of water should be mixed in large cisterns: the mixture should for three weeks be well sti•ed every day, and at the end of that period will have fermented and become acid, b efore which it should not be given. A succession of vessels should be filled with this ferment ed food, that some may be always ready ; and, before it is applied, it should be al ways stirred. Peas-soup is perhaps equal ly wholesome food with the above, and especially if made with warm milk. The preparation, however, is more expensive. Fatting hogs should be constantly well littered, and be kept perfectly clean.
Poultry.
With respect to poultry, constituting as they generally do part of the stock, how ever small, upon farms, a few observations on them may not bethought superfluous. If kept merely for domestie supply, parti cular attention is needless. When rear ed with a view to profit, however, and on a somewhat large scale, they will repay, as they indeed require, considerable at tention. A house should be erected for them, containing divisions appropriately for r2osting, sitting, fatting, and food. The Iuilding should be constructed near the farm-yard, having clear water conti guous to it. Warmth and smoke are great cherishers of poultry. All, of every species, must have access to gravel and grass. Their cheapest food consists of boiled potatoes, on which it appears that they can be supported and fattened with out the aid of any corn. Where numbers of them are kept upon a farm, if permitted to go at large, they will often do consi derable injury both in the fields and barn besides which they will be extreme ly exposed to the attacks of vermin, and will lose a considerable number of their eggs. A full-grown hen continues in her prime for three years, and may be sup posed in that time to lay 200 eggs, which number, however, by warmth and nour ishment, might be greatly exceeded.
The quality and size of the Norfolk turkeys are superior to those of any other part of the kingdom. They are fed almost entirely with buck-wheat, which, perhaps, may account for their excellence, and are bred by almost every little farmer in the county. When young, they demand per petual attention, and must be fed with alum curds and chopped onions, and the expense attending their management and food can be compensated only where broods are tolerably successful, and the prices high.
The Dairy.
In the conduct of a dairy, which, in all but the most productive corn countries, is an object of particular consequence to the farmer, it is obviously of the first im portance to select cows of the best sort, and in judging of the value of this ani mal, the best method of deciding his by the quantity of cream produced in a given time, rather than of milk. The richest milk known is produced by cows of the .,kIderney breed ; but, in all countries, cows yielding a very superior quantity of milk to the generality are to be found, and should be sought for by those per sons to whom their produce is a particular object of attention ; and the breed of such should be particularly cultivated. Rough
waste lands, when the soil is wet, will do better for cows than sheep, and should be always appropriated to them, not in. deed because they are the hest for cows, but because no stock will so well pay up on them.
The grand object of keeping cows be ing the production of abundance and ex cellence of milk, they must, for this pur pose, be supplied with food of the same description. About a month before they calve they should be taken from the straw yard, and have green food given them twice a day, with the roots, whatever they may happen to be, which have been rais ed for their winter food, Having calved, they should be kept perfectly separate from the lean stock, whether in the house or in another yard, and their food should be continued as before. Winter feeding cows with hay, even though none be given them before they calve, breaks in greatly upon the profits of the dairy Cabbages will maintain them in the cheapest man ner, and not give any unpleasant flavour to the milk and butter. The heart alone of the cabbage, however, should be given to them, and the refuse leaves be left to be picked up by the lean cattle. In the month of Maw they should be kept in par ticular good teed, for which purpose they should be turned into the fields of clo ver, which had been early eaten off by sheep. Lucerne is, however, perhaps preferable to clover, as it is equally nour ishing, and gives no ill flavour. When mown, and given in racks or cribs, it will go farther than in any other way, and yield an increased quantity of the most va luable manure, a circumstance which has been often insisted upon, and cannot be too frequently suggested. The feeding place should be kept extremely well lit tered. The profit of cows, in these cir cumstances, will be greater than turning them into luxuriant fields of these artifi cial grasses, although the quantity of their produce might, by the latter me thod, probably be increased ; but by trampling upon and spoiling considerably more than they would eat, the little su perior milk in richness or quantity, which might be produced, would be purchased at a most heavy expense, and one acre so managed would be requisite for every cow, while, by soiling, it would be amply sufficient for three. The clear profit in the comparison of any two modes of management is the grand point of the far mer's consideration, and whatever the farmer finds most profitable, will eventu ally, it must be remembered, most benefit the public. Whatever green meat be thus used in soiling should be fresh mown every two days, the quantity being, as nearly as may be, adapted to the number so fed, not only of cows, but of other stock. Lucerne, if well managed, will bear four mowings for this purpose.