One, to three hundred dollars, according to price of material and labor,
will build this piggery, besides fitting it up with furnace and boilers.
It may be contracted, or enlarged in size, as necessity may direct; but
no one, with six to twenty porkers in his fatting pens, a year, will
regret the expense of building a convenient appurtenance of this kind to
his establishment.
A word may be pardoned, in relation to the too universal practice of
permitting swine to prowl along the highways, and in the yards and lawns
of the farm house. There is nothing so slovenly, wasteful, and
destructive to one's thrift, and so demoralizing, in a small way, as is
this practice. What so revolting to one, of the least tidy nature
whatever, as a villainous brute, with a litter of filthy pigs at her
heels, and the slimy ooze of a mud-puddle reeking and dripping from
their sides? See the daubs of mud marking every fence-post, far and
near, along the highway, or where-ever they run! A burrow is rooted up
at every shady point, a nuisance at every corner you turn, and their
abominable snouts into everything that is filthy, or obscene--a living
curse to all that is decent about them. An Ishmaelite among the farm
stock, they are shunned and hated by every living thing, when at large.
But, put the creature in his pen, with a ring in his nose, if permitted
to go into the adjoining yard, and comfortably fed, your pig, if of a
civilized breed, is a quiet, inoffensive--indeed, gentlemanly sort of
animal; and as such, he is entitled to our toleration--regard, we cannot
say; for in all the pages of our reading, we learn, by no creditable
history, of any virtuous sympathies in a hog.
FARM BARNS.
The farm barn, next to the farm house, is the most important structure
of the farm itself, in the Northern and Middle States; and even at the
south and southwest, where less used, they are of more importance in the
economy of farm management than is generally supposed. Indeed, to our
own eyes, a farm, or a plantation appears incomplete, without a good
barn accommodation, as much as without good household appointments--and
without them, no agricultural establishment can be complete in all its
proper economy.
The most _thorough_ barn structures, perhaps, to be seen in the United
States, are those of the state of Pennsylvania, built by the German
farmers of the lower and central counties. They are large, and expensive
in their construction; and, in a strictly economical view, perhaps more
costly than required. Yet, there is a substance and durability in them,
that is exceedingly satisfactory, and, where the pecuniary ability of
the farmer will permit, may well be an example for imitation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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