PIGS AND POULTRY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXI, Issue 1043, 20 July 1894, Page 3

PIGS AND POULTRY.

•* I Mr William Thomson, Clovenfords, writes as follows' to the Scotsman : — Sir, — Soniowhere about a year ago you were good enough to admit to the columns of the Scotsman a vague notice ' by me of.the extent to which the fattening of poultry was carrird in some English counties, and 1 referred to | Sussex as one of these. I fiad what information I then possessed from ;i friend in Middlesex, who gave, me, a general description of one establishment where 2000 chickens were sent out fattened and fit for market weekly. My friend offered to take me to see this establishment, but time would not permit. I am, however, now in possession of more exact information, which may interest some of your leaders, as my former remarks certainly did, judging by the number of letters I got anxiously asking for more information. From the printed information before me, it seems that the large fatteners do not hatch a tenth of the birds they fatten ; they are raised by cottagers in very rude shelters they erect behind their cottages. ,The husband generally feeds them by lamplight before he goes to his day's work, the wife attending to them during the day, and after paying for food they realise a clear profit of about LlO a year. The higgler comes round at stated periods and purchases such as are ready for feeding, and re-sells them to the great feders. AMr Oliver seems to be the most extensive of these, and it was his establishment my friend described to me and wished me to see. It sends out from 1500 to 2000 fat chickens weekly, or about 90,000 yearly, realising about L 15,000, leaving a profit over L'3ooo a year. When the home supply of green chickens is not equal to the demand, thousands are procured from Ireland at a cost for carriage of 4^d each. The authority I am quoting from, Mr Ewd. Brown in ' Live Stock Journal Almanack,' shows that from one railway station in Sussex, Heathfield, 1350 tons of dead poultry are despatched annually, about 750,000 fowls, and that the connty of Sussex feeds 1,112,000 fowls annually, which Mr Brown values ab L 196,00 small item this for a sort of by product of a single county. T suspect from his name that Mr Oliver may be a Scotsman, probably from Roxburghshire. I wish he, would come down and bite some of his county men and women and get them to do as he is doing in the matter of poultry. Every sort of food for fending chickens is to be procured in Leith as cheap as in Sussex, T fuel pretty certain. It seems a very natural transition from chickens to hams, and I confess that I have long felt it a sort of luunilation that we scots, if we want a tirst-class ham or a cut of equally good bacon, n -, us t — by deputy, at least — go to Win. Harris, cap in hand, and I have heard that cash in hand is all but imperative. There can be no doubt that the system he adopts to produce, such excellent results must be of the best, but I hold that it can be imitated elsewhere, though up to date it has not be ;i n so, in Scotlond at any rate, nor do I know that such bacon is produced anywhere in the, world as that known as ' Wiltshire bacon.' The Americans feed their pigs without due care as to the results on the product, and if that were all it should be, they spoil it by their process of killing. They plunge the. carcase into water near the boiling point, and cut it up and salt it while hot, with unsatisfactory results. Irish bacon and hams are from pigs fed by Dick, Tom, and Harry, carted into Belfast market on Monday like loads of hay, and neither the breeds nor the feeding is of the best. No process of curing could make good bacon of such animals. There is no doubt what a Frenchman calls ' de ham of York ' is fairly good, but it has to take the second place. Having got thus far, I would suggest that there is no reason in the world why great pig feeding and bacon and ham producing establishments should not be established say in the Lothians. There is no part in Britain where food can be procured cheaper, being near such a port as Leith, where all sorts of feeding stuffs can be procured, and there are thousands of tons of unmarketable potatoes. The right breed of pigs could bfi procured and surely men could be got for money that could cure bacon, Much wou'd depend on the feeding for. fourteen days before they were killed, and that this should be done on a uniform principle the animals should be bought and kept at the killing depots for this time and have special food, sc as to give to the meat the proper con sistency. Dryer food should be given, such as peas, bean meal, and cereals ol various kinds, and when killed they should have the hair removed by othei means than hot water — singed by a hot electric wire, instead of straw, which ] have heard they use in Wiltshire for removing the hair. This done, the cur ing would follow, and it should be drj curing, to be followed by smoking. If such establishments were set or foot, they would be no small benefit both to producer , and consumers ; an c it seems a humiliating confession thai what can be dove in one county cannoi be done in another, in such a manner. i To some of the by-products indicated ; our agriculturists must betake thenv selves, if they are to hold their own against constantly increasing coiupeti

tion. The breediug and feeding would have to be done on system, and not in the hit or miss style so commonly met with ; and now that all sorts of potato mashers, steam cooking apparatus, and and mines for grinding seed are cheap \ :ind efficient, a man could attend to and j feed a couple of hundred pigs. And if such a stock were constantly kept going on a large arable farm they would yield :i better profit than oxen would, seeing they have frequently to be bought in at a greater relative price than they fetch when fat. Tha 200 pigs would trpad a large quantity of straw into manure — specially if it were cut into chaff, and it | would be ready at any time to plough into the land.