IU1] OF SELBORNE. 207 



LETTER LXXV. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



* 



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

 reason is plain because it is neither profitable nor convenient 

 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-bred 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 pro- 

 digious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was 

 killed in spring 1775. 



