388 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the work of destruction went on. Alarmed at a course which bid 

 fair to ruin every insurance office in the empire, the directors 

 petitioned in a body to the general court of China for the pas- 

 sage of an act which shoiild arrest the evil and avert tlieir 

 tlireatened ruin, and a careful examination of the revised stat- 

 utes of China would probablj' show stringent prohibitions against 

 the crime of burning houses for the sake of roasting pigs. 



Since the invention of the modern cook stove, however, although 

 incendiarism has decreased, only in a slight degree, still it has 

 ceased to be attributable to this cause, and a juicy crackling is 

 no longer suggestive of fallen rafters or a houseless family. 



There is an old adage, " give a dog a bad name and his ruin 

 is accomplished." Such may be true of the canine race, but 

 the noble family of animals of which I am treating, furnishes 

 a striking illustration that the proverb applies not to their num- 

 bers. 



A goose, it is said, saved lordly Rome by his cackling, and 

 had not their list of divinities just then been full, a grateful 

 people would have found for him, a sedgy pond and quiet nest, 

 in Olympus. How did the ancestors of that same people repay 

 the pig for a service scarcely less important? 



The veriest smatterer in the classics, knows, that, when from 

 flaming Troy, ^neas, the great Anchises bore, seeking in strange 

 lands a new home for his conquered people, a white sow, attended 

 by thirty white little pigs, pure as herself, pointed out to him 

 the seat of his future empire. But what did he and his people 

 do for the pig in turn ? Did they load him with honors ? Did 

 they cherish him with corn ? Did they treat him with respect ? 

 No ! with black ingratitude which still merits the indignation 

 of every admirer of the pig, they affixed to the animal, the 

 apellation of " porcus," and poor cuss the pig would have been 

 to the present day, had not the Latin tongue long since ceased to 

 be the language of the world. But poor cuss, he is no longer. 

 When in Worcester county he spurns his classic name, and 

 adopting the vernacular, — grows the whole hog — that he may 

 pork us in return for the care which we bestow upon him. 



For the sake of our farmers who are anxious to make a profit 

 from pig raising, it is greatly to be regretted, that the thirty at 

 a litter breed, already alluded to, has disappeared from the face 

 of the earth. Breeding swine, with such a rate of increase must 



