96 Next to the Ground 



have to look to either the Lord er the county 

 for more. 



Beech-mast makes the finest pork in the 

 world not quite so firm as grain-fed meat, 

 but sweeter and more delicate. Sweet mast 

 that is to say, butternuts, small hickory- 

 nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, white oak and 

 post oak acorns, give good, fairly firm fat, 

 and an agreeable game flavor. Bitter mast 

 pignuts, buckeyes, red-oak acorns, and those 

 of the Spanish oak, the black-jack, water- 

 oak, turkey oak, and over-cup oak, make flesh 

 that is oily, somewhat rank, slightly bitter, 

 with yellow fat instead of white. Still, bushel 

 for bushel, it makes more fat than any except 

 pure beech-mast. The yield is also more 

 plenty, and very much more certain. The 

 flat-woods mast was nearly all bitter, but old 

 man Shack was rather glad of it. He called 

 hogs every morning, and gave them grudging 

 handfuls of shattered corn just enough, as 

 he explained, to ha'nt 'em home against 

 killin' time. Hogs fed even scantily at reg- 

 ular intervals, will come to the feeding-place 

 without calling at the feeding time, often per- 

 sisting for weeks after feeding has ceased. 



The instinct is turned to account against 

 wild hogs. With a wide stretch of woods, 

 and mast in plenty, there are always adven- 

 turous individuals to stray into the wooded 



