to complain of;
they are in good humour with mankind. It must, however, be confessed, that
very little, comparatively speaking, is to be accomplished by the
individual efforts even of benevolent men like the two noblemen before
mentioned. They have a strife to maintain against the _general tendency of
the national state of things_. It is by general and indirect means, and
not by partial and direct and positive regulations, that so great a good
as that which they generously aim at can be accomplished. When we are to
see such means adopted, God only knows; but, if much longer delayed, I am
of opinion, that they will come too late to prevent something very much
resembling a dissolution of society.

145. The cottager's pig should be bought in the spring, or late in winter;
and being then four months old, he will be a year old before killing time;
for it should always be borne in mind, that this age is required in order
to insure the greatest quantity of meat from a given quantity of food. If
a hog be more than a year old, he is the better for it. The flesh is more
solid and more nutritious than that of a young hog, much in the same
degree that the mutton of a full-mouthed wether is better than that of a
younger wether. The pork or bacon of young hogs, even if fatted on corn,
is very apt to _boil out_, as they call it; that is to say, come out of
the pot smaller in bulk than it goes in. When you begin to fat, do it by
degrees, especially in the case of hogs under a year old. If you feed
_high_ all at once, the hog is apt to _surfeit_, and then a great loss of
food takes place. Peas, or barley-meal is the food; the latter rather the
best, and does the work quicker. Make him _quite fat_ by all means. The
last bushel, even if he sit as he eat, is the most profitable. If he can
walk two hundred yards at a time, he is not well fatted. Lean bacon is the
most wasteful thing that any family can use. In short, it is uneatable,
except by drunkards, who want something to stimulate their sickly
appetite. The man who cannot live on _solid fat_ bacon, well-fed and
well-cured, wants the sweet sauce of labour, or is fit for the hospital.
But, then, it must be _bacon_, the effect of barley or peas, (not beans,)
and not of whey, potatoes, or _messes_ of any kind. It is frequently said,
and I know that even farmers say it, that bacon, made from corn, _costs
more than it is worth_! Why do they take care to have it then? They know
better. They kn