LETTER XXXIII. 



70 the same. 



HE natural term of an 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 ex- 

 tent of its time : however, my neighbour, 

 a man of substance, who had no occa- 

 sion to study every little advantage to a 

 nicety, kept an 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 



