gs 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