222 THE HOG, 



LETTEE LXXY. 



TO THE SAME. 



THE natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the 

 reason is plain because it is neither profitable nor conve- 

 nient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of its 

 time ; however, my neighbour, a man of substance, who had 

 no occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety, kept 

 a half-bed Bantam sow, who was as thick as she was long, 

 and whose belly swept on the ground, till she was advanced 

 to her seventeenth year ; at which period, she showed some 

 tokens of age by the decay of her teeth, and the decline of 

 her fertility. 



For about ten years, this prolific mother produced two 

 litters in the year, of about ten at a time, and once above 

 twenty at a litter; but, as there were near double the 

 number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long 

 experience in the world, this female was grown very sagacious 

 and artful. When she found occasion to converse with a 

 boar, she used to open all the intervening gates, and march, 

 by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept ; and, 

 when her purpose was served, would return by the same 

 means. At the age of about fifteen, her litters began to be 

 reduced to four or five ; and such a litter she exhibited when 

 in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon, juicy 

 and tender ; the rind, or sward, was remarkably thin. At 

 a moderate computation, she was allowed to have been the 

 fruitful parent of three hundred pigs a prodigious instance 

 of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was killed in 

 spring, 1775. 



