Molasses Covered Pigs Stick Together

Pennsylvania, 1915

Stanley F. Smith, of near Irishtown, Secretary to the Oxford Township Board of Supervisors, had a very peculiar operation to perform among his swine on Sunday morning.

It was simply this: Mr. Smith, on Saturday evening visited town, and on his return home, when he alighted from his buggy, took a kettle containing one gallon of molasses from the vehicle and placed it upon a stone in the barnyard, where he expected to get it and take it to the house with him after he had stabled the horse and placed the buggy in the shed.

It happened, however, that Stanley had forgot about the molasses when he went to the house, and did not think of it until Sunday morning. It happened, also, that there were a number of shoats running at large in the yard, and during the night they discovered the kettle, overturned it, and spilled the contents. They not only ate of it, but layed down and rolled in it, and then went to sleep in a huddle.

On Sunday morning when Mr. Smith approached the yard he found three of the shoats sticking together — so much so that they could not separate and neither one of them could move without taking the other along. Finally, the only way that Stanley could contrive to separate the squealers was to cut them apart with a large mule shears, which he succeeded in doing, only after getting himself well soaked with the contents of the kettle, which now covered the shoats.

—New Oxford Item, New Oxford, PA, Jan. 14, 1915.