n planks, with a steep
_slant_ the whole length of the trough, that the feed may be readily
thrown into any or all parts of it. This slide should be of two-inch
white-oak plank, and bound along the bottom by a strip of hoop-iron, to
prevent the pigs from eating it off--a habit they are prone to; then,
firmly spiked down to the partition planks, and through the ends, to the
adjoining studs, and the affair is complete. With what experience we
have had with the hog, and that by no means an agreeable one, we can
devise no better method of accommodation than this here described, and
it certainly is the cheapest. But the timber and lumber used must be
sound and strong; and then, properly put together, it may defy their
most destructive ingenuity. Of the separate uses to which the various
apartments may be put, nothing need be said, as the circumstances of
every farmer will best govern them.

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 canno