at if the pigs
are not weaned until nearly three months, the milk of the sow will have
gradually ceased to flow, and the pigs will not miss the help from
their dam. Their digestive organs will then have become sufficiently
developed to enable them to make the best use of the food given to them,
and they will sustain no check in thrift or growth when they are weaned.

In this question of weaning pigs the good old fashioned plan of
following the middle course will probably be found to be the best.
Anyway, it was the one which we followed for a great number of years and
found the results generally satisfactory for the following among other
reasons.

As a breeder of pure bred pigs for sale as boars or yelts for breeding
purposes, we were naturally anxious to give the pigs a good start in
life so that we should be able to sell them as quickly as possible, and
that they should thrive when they came into the possession of their new
owners, and thus prove the best possible advertisement of our herds. As
a rule we found that if the pigs were allowed to remain on the sows
until they were some eight weeks old they were quite strong enough to
fend for themselves, that by gradually increasing the length of time
which the sow was allowed to remain from the pigs, the latter became
accustomed to exist without the mother's milk, and as the milk of the
sow naturally dried up when the pigs partially ceased to withdraw it, no
trouble was experienced with inflamed udders as is usually or commonly
the case when the pigs are suddenly weaned from a sow which is in full
milk.

There is also another advantage apart from that to the sow and pigs, it
is that the sow will almost invariably come in heat within three or
four days of the weaning, and with the best possible chance of becoming
in pig.

Some pig keepers are more inclined to wean their litter of pigs at an
early age, and then if the sow be low in condition to baulk her at the
first time of [oe]strum. There are objections to this--one of them is
that there is frequently a difficulty in getting the sow to conceive
after she has been baulked. Why this should be so we have not been able
to ascertain. We only record what we know to be a fact.

In our opinion this difficulty is one of the strongest points in favour
of the practice of allowing the young pigs of a sow with her first
litter, or of an old sow which has become low in condition (either from
having had too many pigs left on her,