CHAPTER VI.

OUR PIGS.

We had every reason to be satisfied with the profit we had derived from our dairy, and next proceeded to examine the accounts we had kept of our pigs for six months.

We commenced by purchasing, on the 14th of July, one for which we paid $7 50.  For the first month it had nothing but the wash from the house, the skim-milk from the dairy, and greens from the garden.  When we began to dig the potatoes, we found we could not hope to save the whole crop from the disease; we had, therefore, a quantity boiled and put in the pig-tub, and upon these it was fed another month.  At the end of that time we began to give it a little meal and a few peas.  It was killed three months after we had purchased it, and the cost for meal and peas was just $250.  Thus, altogether, we paid for it $10, and when killed it weighed thirteen stone (182 pounds).  This we reckoned worth $1 371/2 the stone, which made the value of the meat $17 871/2; we had, therefore, a clear profit of $7 871/2.  Of course, it would have been very different had we bought all the food for it; but the skim-milk, and vegetables from the garden would have been wasted, had we been without a pig to consume them:  as it was, the profit arose from our “farm of four acres.”

These particulars are given for the reason that the writer has frequently heard her friends in the country say, “Oh, I never keep either pigs or poultry:  the pork and the fowls always cost twice the price they can be purchased for.”  This we could never understand, when the despisers of home-cured hams and home-fed poultry used to assert it.  Supposing there was no actual profit, still it seemed strange that those who had the option of eating pork fed on milk and vegetables, and fowls which were running about the meadows a few hours before they were killed, should prefer those which are kept in close confinement and crammed with candle-graves and other abominations, till they are considered what dealers call “ripe” enough to kill; and as for pork, much of that which is sold in towns is fed on the offal from the butchers’ shops, and other filth.  It is well known that pigs will eat anything in the shape of animal food; and for myself, I would much rather, like the Jew and the Turk, abjure it altogether, than partake of meat fed as pork too commonly is.  How few people can eat this meat with impunity! but they might do so if the animal had been properly fed.

It is a great mistake to make pork so fat as it usually is:  it is not only great waste, but deters many persons from partaking of it.  Servants will not eat it, and those who purchase it, as well as those who kill their own pigs, may be certain that the surplus fat finds its way into the “wash-tub,” for the benefit of a future generation of “piggies.”