14 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



REPORT ON SWINE. 



[From the Report of the Committee of the Hampshire Agricultural Society.] 



It is no part of the work of your Committee in this report 

 to recite the history of the hog, or to trace, step by step, the 

 work of domestication and breeding by which this animal 

 has undergone such wonderful changes as scarcely to be 

 recognized as having descended from the wild boar, but 

 simply to present such hints and suggestions in their care and 

 management as it is hoped may be of some special benefit to 

 those for whom it was written. How the farmers of New 

 England shall manage their hogs so as to derive the largest 

 amount of profit, and thus, perhaps, be able to successfully 

 compete with the Western farmers in supplying our own 

 markets with pork, is a question that interests no small pro- 

 portion of our farmers at the present time. 



The farmers of fifty or seventy-five years ago, in certain 

 portions of this State at least, looked upon the keeping and 

 fattening of hogs as one of the most important and valuable 

 means of disposing of their grain, and adding to the profits 

 of their farming. While liberal quantities of pork were 

 cured for home use, a large amount was annually transported 

 by teams to Boston, and there either exchanged for cash or 

 the yearly supply of groceries. Now this, to a great extent, 

 is changed. By means of the railroads, our farmers are 

 brought into direct competition with the great grain-growing 

 sections and interests of the West. The increased attention 

 bestowed on tlic improvement of their breed of hogs, and the 

 rapid strides which have taken place in the business as the 

 outgrowth of these improvements, and the problem which 

 the Western farmers have solved in sendhig their cheap grain 

 to our Eastern market in the shape of pork (or as one writer 

 states it, "of sending thirty bushels of grain in a three- 

 bushel barrel "), has given the Western farmer no small 

 advantage. This competition, instead of discouraging, should 

 stimulate, our farmers to secure the very best breeds, and to 



