26 AGRICULTURE. 



that, in his present or in some improved form, he will be 

 brought year by year more within their reach. With some 

 deductions, analogous to those which we urged in the case 

 of the short-horn, we must admit his superiority over his 

 competitors in this particular, that he yields, at the least 

 costj and in the shortest time, the largest weight of meat. 

 There our eulogium must end. His flesh is coarse, his 

 wool is inferior, his constitution is tender. Obesity of body 

 and serenity of mind act and re-act on each other, and have 

 conspired to make a Leicester tup a marvel of idleness. 

 He is equally difficult to provoke to love or war : he dies 

 soft under hardships. Showmen find it to be their interest 

 to place together a giant and a dwarf the extremes of the 

 human race. In order to exhibit at one view the extremes 

 of the " genus ovinum^' with a Leicester ram, prepared for 

 the show, should be coupled a Welsh ewe from Cader Idris, 

 fresh from the hill, newly shorn, and having just weaned 

 her lamb. We throw out the hint to Mr. Burgess or Mr. 

 Stone. 



If the sheep of agriculture is an indefinite animal, the 

 agricultural pig is still more so. Every tyro in breeding 

 has tried his hand on them. Every gentleman farmer 

 presents his friend with " a gilt of my own breed." " En- 

 courage the breed of pigs," said the Bishop of Chester (now 

 of London) to his clergy, if credit is to be placed in the 

 metrical version of his lordship's Charge, indited by the 

 Rev. Sydney Smith. We hope that what was enjoined on 

 a parson is not forbidden to a reviewer, for we have had 

 our experience in pig-breeding. We inherited a long- 

 legged sow, hog-backed, bristly-maned, flat-sided, slouch- 

 eared, rather a ferocious-looking animal. Twice a year 

 she was followed down the lane by an almost interminable 

 series of little grunters reduplications of mamma six- 

 teen, eighteen, we believe even twenty at a litter. But 

 how could these satisfy the eye of a critic ? So we began, 

 afresh, and a few years of judicious selection and crossing 

 gave us animals of almost perfect symmetry. The litters, 



