Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1871 — How to Manage Spring Pigs. [ARTICLE]

How to Manage Spring Pigs.

In answer to this question, put by one of its contributors, the American Agriculturist has the following: It depends on the breed, the food at command, the conveniences for feeding, the probable price for pork next fall, and the price a year lienee. We should premise, however, that in any case the pigs should have all they will eat of some kind of food.. The only difference to be made between growing pigs and fattening pigs is in the character of the food. A fattening pig requires rich, concentrated food; a growing pig a more bulky and less nutritious food; but, in either ca.se, the pig, to do well, must have all it Will eat. If you have a small-boned, well-bred pig, such as a grade Essex or Berkshire or Suffolk, we think it would be far more profit able as a rule to fatten spring pigs than to winter them over. Let them have the run of a clover pasture, all the slops and milk from the house, and all the com and other grain in water twenty-four hours before feeding. If well bred, such treatment should give you pigs that will dress 300 pounds by the first of December. On the other hand, if you have a coarse, largeboned breed of pigs, the better plan will be to winter them over. In this case, give them the run of a good clovei 1 pasture, plenty of water, what waste from the house you have to spare, and a little grain to keep them growing as rapidly as possible. •

—lt may surprise some readers to know that the oleander, so popular as a house and garden plant, is extremely poisonous. Dr. T L. Wright, in a communication to the Bellefontaine (O.) Republican, says that he was called to attend a child a few days ago who had eaten some small fragments of an oleander bush that had been clipped off. The symptoms were sudden and violent, and the result nearly fatal. Deathly prostration, sunken eyes, great pallor, incessant vomiting, extreme thirst, and purging were the predominating symptoms.