nd I thought it large enough to keep four or five hundred
pigs of all sizes in good health and good condition for forcing. Some of
the swine, not intended for market, would have more liberty; but close
confinement in clean pens and small runs was to be the rule. To crowd
hogs in this way, and at the same time to keep them free from disease,
would require special vigilance. The ordinary diseases that come from
damp and draughts could be fended off by carefully constructed
buildings. Cleanliness and wholesome food ought to do much, and
isolation should accomplish the rest. I have established a perfect
quarantine about my hog lot, and it has never been broken. After the
first invoices of swine in the winter and spring of 1896, no hog, young
or old, has entered my piggery, save by the way of a sixty-day
quarantine in the wood lot, and very few by that way.

My pigs are several hundred yards from the public roads, and my
neighbor, Jackson, has planted a young orchard on his land to the north
of my hog lots, and permits no hogs in this planting. I have thus
secured practical isolation. I have rarely sent swine to fairs or stock
shows. In the few instances in which I have broken this rule I have sold
the stock shown, never returning it to Four Oaks.

Isolation, cleanliness, good food, good water, and a constant supply of
ashes, charcoal, and salt, have kept my herd (thus far) from those
dreadfully fatal diseases that destroy so many swine. If I can keep the
specific micro-organism that causes hog-cholera off my place, I need not
fear the disease. The same is true of swine plague. These diseases are
of bacterial origin, and are communicated by the transference of
bacteria from the infected to the non-infected. I propose to keep my
healthy herd as far removed as possible from all sources of infection. I
have carried these precautions so far that I am often scoffed at. I
require my swineherd, when returning from a fair or a stock show, to
take a full bath and to disinfect his clothing before stepping into the
pig-house. This may seem an unnecessary refinement in precautionary
measures, but I do not think so. It has served me well: no case of
cholera or plague has shown itself at Four Oaks.

What would I do if disease should appear? I do not know. I think,
however, that I should fight it as hard as possible at close quarters,
killing the seriously ill, and burning all bodies. After the scourge had
passed I would dispose of all s