PIGS. 55 



is superior. Milk will fatten pigs entirely, without 

 the aid of any other food, a practice sometimes in 

 the dairies. Corn-fed pork is next in value ; peas, 

 oats, and barley being the best adapted grain. Bean- 

 fed pork is hard, ill-flavoured, and indigestible. 

 Potato-fed, it is loose, insipid, weighs light, and 

 wastes much in cookery. Hence the inferiority of 

 the Irish pork and bacon to the English has been 

 calculated at three ounces per pound. Clover-fed 

 pork is yellow, unsubstantial, and ill-tasted : fat- 

 tened on acorns it is hard, light, and unwholesome ; 

 on oilcake, seeds, or chandler's greaves, it becomes 

 loose, greasy, and little better than carrion ; on 

 butcher's offal, luscious, rank, and full of gravy, but 

 of strong and disgusting scent." 



By other authorities, acorn-fed pork is said to 

 have a peculiarly delicious flavour. There are not, 

 however, in England, the opportunities for obtaining 

 this provender that there used to be when heart of 

 oak was in more request for the dockyards. To the 

 chesnuts and acorns the German hogs enjoy, is attri- 

 buted, in a great degree, the superior flavour of the 

 Westphalian ham. {Stephens) The same is said of 

 the Lisbon pig. Henderson mentions that " the late 

 Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, I have been told, was in 

 the habit of sending his pigs to one of the islands of 

 Loch Lomond, where there is an oak plantation, that 

 they might pick up the acorns, which is said to have 

 given a surprising degree of delicacy to the flesh." 



The acorns, others say, should be gathered, baked, 

 and ground to flour. This comes again somewhat to 

 the vexed question of cooking, or not cooking. Mor- 



