PIGS FOR PROFIT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 95, 5 December 1911, Page 8

PIGS FOR PROFIT.

HOG -F Ail MIX 0 OX UP-TO-DATE LINES. MIDHIRST MAX’S METHODS. (By Will Desmond.) It is always pleasing to ho able to record tho efforts of anybody—be ho farmer or not—who makes an endeavour to run bis business on the most up-to-date lines—to make the whole of Ids land produce right up to its hunt and to make his product second to none. Tho Department of Agriculture is untiring in its efforts to impress this on the dairy farmers of the country, and they have succeeded in educating a largo percentage of them to improve their herds by testing their cows and doing tho culling winch is made easy by reason of the testing. In this district—at Midhirst —there is a pig farm, kept by Mr W. H. Rutledge, which combines a great many up-to-date ideas; and though Air Rutledge deserves every credit for his enterprise, energy and forethought, the main object of the following description of bis farm is to bring under the notice of farmers the up-to-date ideas embodied and to suggest thought on the matter, which may lead farmers to copy some of the labour-saving devices used: no doubt they could not go in for pigs as extensively as Mr Rutledge, but in their less extensive operations they could embody some of the methods on a smaller scale and thereby increase the productiveness of their land and improve tho quality of their pigs, to do winch- is, or should be, the object of every farmer who has nearest bis heart his own inter csts and, consequently, the interest? of the country as a whole; for with the individual fanners of a country producing to the full of their best (primarily merely to increase their own profits) the maim of that country will increase on the markets of the world. This last apparently maxi matic statement need not bo accepted as true; but. though comparisons arc always odious (especially to one at least of tho compared parties), a glance at tho agricultural history of Denmark and a contemplation of its pro sent position on the butter market will prove that the statement is ’either good enough to be true or true enough to he good. In any case nobody is called on to believe the statement ; and if anybody can well and truly prove that any individual or the country has been bankrupted by acting on it as an axiom the “Stratford Evening Post” will gladly make up the deficiency in the estate of the aforesaid bankrupted individual or country. Which seems all it is necessary to say on that head : having proved the necessity for modern methods, tho modern methods particularly under review may he dealt with. Mr Rutledge arrived in Midhirst in July last, having previously been resident at Horopito, . Main Trunk district, and at once set to work setting his house (meaning, of course, farm) in order. The farm is run on order to use up tho butter-milk from the Midhirst Dairy Factory, from which it is distant only about two hundred yards. Previously the chief problem was the getting of the buttermilk from the factory to the sties tile former owner having laboriously carted it up in a tank in a dray. This problem was made to look very small indeed, or rather to lose so many of the essentials of a hard-working, and steady-going problem that it could not with a clear conscience claim to hr a bona fide problem at all. Mr Rutledge was confronted with the necessity of purchasing a dray specially for this work, and, presumably, he sal down and figured out the cost of dray and horse with maintenance to tin end of time. This cost be apparently found too great; and the idea o) running the milk in through pipe? suggested itself. And when the relative cost of the two methods had been properly compared tho pipes won The pipes were laid down, the factory authorities agreed to pump up the milk, and Air Rutledge installed two tanks, capable of holding 5200 gallons.——(The factory turns out about 1250 gallons of butter-milk daily. : Those tanks are at a slight elevation above the sties, which are on 'a fiat close, to a stream, and the milk gravitates down the piping to them. The piping is continued through the sties and all that is necessary to be done to feed the prospective pork and blossoming bacon is to turn a tap. Qnotli the proprietor: “Under the old scheme one had to put on one’s old clothes when one fed the pigs: I can do it

[ now with my Sunday clothes on.’ I (Tho visit took place on a Sunday | This fact is not mentioned as a (map j antes of good faith, or for publication, but to explain the remark; of course, it is presumed that farmers who make their land produce tf the full of its host (the phrase is repeated because it is one specially adapted for pasting in a farmer’s hat) will wear Sunday clothes the whole ol every day in tho year.) To resume: There are six fattening pens ami five breeding pens, the walls and floors o I which are of concrete, tho floors he ing covered with movable wooden platforms, as concrete is hard on the pigs’ feet. A pathway runs up through tho fattening pens, enabling the j.igf to he fed and inspected with a ; leg roc of ease, quickness and cleanliness not usually found in sties. iho roof i? arched, and is covered with patent rooting material, which will ensure the animals always having a diy bed; hut special care has been taken to ensure that all available light ai d sun shall bo admitted. The pigs are fed largely on milk, a little pollard being added to the ration during tlie ipetition of topping-off. In the sties inert is room for tho accomiao.l.iih'n ol eighty pigs; and tho supply of nidiat present is sufficient to support ah out a hundred and forty pigs. r l here are a hundred pigs on the farm ano fifty more are due at an early date Tho troughs are all m do of concrete and appeared very clean, which is not to ho wondered at when tho cleanliness of the sties is considered, which cleanliness one would expect to sec when, as is the case here, tho whole of six pons can he thoroughly cleaned with the minimum of exertion in half an hour. Tho farm comprises forty acres, and with the mangels and turnips tin’s will produce Mr Rutledge hones to he able to continue operations through the winter. A series of gates enables the muck in the sties to ho all swept to one end, where it escapes through pipes. .Much as poetry is abominated liy hard-headed and practical men it scorns titling to reproduce' at this point the following verso regarding pigs:—

> n I v I-cloved hretl, 1 is it i ol a sin—■ When yon pool potatoes yon throw away the skin : The skin foods the pig—tho pig feeds you : Dearly beloved brethren, is it not a true. Tho verse is suggested by Mr RutId ego’s method of disposing of the muck. It is usually allowed to congregate at some spot suitable to itself, there to waste its sweetness (or whatever its essential characteristic is) on the desert' air, tilling aforesaid desert air with a unique and stom-ach-upsetting variety of aromas, odours, and plain, unvarnished, unmiti-

gated slinks. Mr .Rutledge has dug pits near the outfalls from tho sites, whoie tho muck will gather, to be later on sledged up and spread over the farm, to enable tho'proprietor )in t-lr. woicls which readers have probably by this time pasted in their hats) to make the land produce its best to the fullest. Quoth the proprietor (he did lot of ((nothing, being proud of bis work): “A chap from Tariki—l didn’t know his name and I didn’t ask him —said it makes tho best manure, and ho said instead of (as now) milking ton cows I would he able to milk twenty.” Verily making two blades if grass grow where one grew before! Tnat is all that will be said in des■riplion of the place; and if anything ms been loft unsaid or said backways the inquiring farmer (and every tanner who endeavours to make the

isnd produce of its best to the fullest is of necessity [lastly, presently, and fntnrely, an inquirer) can pay a visit in the farm. Mr Rutledge is a busy nan just now, but on a practical man’s /isifc to the place there will bo more vork for the eye than the car or praise goodness) for the nose. And now, lastly (as the clergyman says half way through bis sermon), ire there not points which can be drafted out and lined up to bo heard md determined (as the blue paper which nobody over reads, though reunitedly adjured thereunto, say’s)!’ there are. Hero are some:—

think whether it is better to rig up a raised tank beside the sty, having a pipe leading to the trough, or

to waste time and temper dipping file soor (look out of a barrel, think whether it is necessary or desirable to have a stink about the sty’ against which one could loan. Think, whether the pig will he unable to thrive if its pen is kept sweetami clean and not left mucky and

stinky. think whether it is more profitable to use muck to produce stink or mangels. think whether you cannot, by general-

ly improving yonr methods, be able to feed more and better pigs, think about pasting the motto “Make the land produce of its best to the fullest” in your hat. think——Oh, well, just think on general principles : thought never killed a man, though it was responsible for the premature demise of a small lad who thought a plug of dymamitc was a piece of stickjaw.