Consarn a pig anyhow. I know how important pigs are just now, and we are making arrangements to raise our share of them, but that doesn't make me like them a bit better. Until this year we have contented ourselves with raising an occasional pig for our own use, but when preparing for this year's meat supply I felt expansive and bought a couple of plump little pigs. I admit that I like little pigs—both alive and roasted. Their perpetual smile, which even a session in the oven can't take off, appeals to me. But a full-grown, able-bodied pig is another matter—especially at feeding time. The two that we have finishing for winter pork have long since passed from the innocent, engaging suckling pig stage and have developed all the disagreeable mannerisms of the full-grown hog. To make matters worse, our arrangements for keeping hogs are of the old-fashioned kind that bring out all the bad qualities of the pig. When making necessary changes about the barn the old pigpen was torn down and this year's pen is a makeshift of the kind that you find among backward farmers—a small pen for them to sleep in and a larger pen built of rails, where they get their feed and take the air. The trough is a light affair made of a couple of boards, and they have no trouble in rooting it all over the pen, so that it has to be pulled around and turned right side up every time the brutes are fed. Things were not so bad until the pigs grew up, but now I dread feeding them more than any chore on the place. They can see me mixing the chop feed and the whole neighbourhood can hear the abuse they heap on me for being so slow. The remarks that they make in hog language about the Food Controller on this farm would not look well in print. When I start towards the pen with their rations my two fat friends are always standing up with their front feet hooked over the top rail of their pen and their mouths wide open and squalling. I have a club handy so that I can beat them back while I pull the trough into shape, but I have to drop it when I go to put the feed before them. This job is a regular fight. I have to hold the pail as high as I can and try to tilt a little of the feed into one end of the trough, in the hope of occupying them while I spread the rest evenly. I am lucky if I manage the trick without spilling the feed, and the racket is deafening. By the time I am done I am "all het up" and feel like taking the club and giving them a good mauling. I know I am to blame myself for having things in such shape, but that doesn't make me like the pigs a bit more. However, the trouble will be over in about a week, and we shall have a new pen and a proper trough for the next batch of pigs that we are arranging to raise for the good of the country. A man can fight a couple of pigs at meal times, but a whole litter would probably prove unmanageable.