M NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



timer mentions that " in Staffordshire, on a poor, 

 light, shallow soil, some sow a small white pea, which 

 they never reap, but turn in so many hogs to eat 

 them as they think they will fat, and then they let 

 them lie day and night, and their dung will so enrich 

 the land that it will bring a good sward upon it and 

 graze well many years afterwards." 



Pliny distinguishes between the relative value of 

 beech-mast and the different kinds of acorn, in a 

 rather lengthy disquisition, and as an Italian should 

 be rather an authority on the pig question, in con- 

 sideration of the Neapolitan noble that originated 

 Lord Western's famous Essex black breed, with all 

 deference let us listen. I can give but a summary : 



1. Beech-mast makes a pig feel jolly, his flesh 

 capital to cook, and easy of digestion. 



2. The acorn of the holm oak (ilex) makes a pig 

 sleek, but tucks him up and narrows him ; turning 

 him out eventually, however, a weighty parcel of 

 sound, lean meat : a good side of bacon for the mid- 

 day cabbage-pot dinner of the gaping rustic house- 

 hold. 



3. The acorn of the common oak (quercus) — the 

 sweetest and heaviest of acorns — fattens well, but 

 the meat is flabby. 



Beware, especially with pigs, of supplying them in 

 undue quantity with food of a binding nature : as, 

 for instance, with milk and wheat-flour, dry beans, 

 &c, which are the mischief, unless quickened in 

 their passage by a few fresh mangold slices. On the 

 other hand, I should remark that these same man- 

 golds, unless in turn corrected by flour, will upset 



