CHAPTER VI. 



The Boar: Selection and Management 



Success with the boar involves careful and timely se- 

 lection, and a management always influenced by the fact 

 that the head of the herd, if incompetent, or ill-bred and 

 ill-fed, can degrade herd standards even when mated 

 with the best of sows, while, if he is what he should be, 

 the produce of inferior sows will in\ariably be improved 

 by his use. He is sire for the pigs of many dams, and 

 his general influence is, therefore, much greater than 

 that of any sow can possibly be. 



It matters not how many sows a man has, or how much 

 pains he may have taken tliat they be of the highest qual- 

 ity, if he permits this ((uality to 1)e neutralized by the use 

 of an inferior boar. However well the boar may look, if 

 in breeding he is a mongrel — a cross of this, a little of 

 that, and not much of anything in particular; or if indi- 

 vidually he is well bred, l)ut has l)een overworked, over- 

 fed, or not fed enough while young, or perhaps is of 

 delicate constitution, he may, and likely will, beget an un- 

 thrifty, weedy progeny, inheriting largely of his weak- 

 nesses and want of character, with very little of the good 

 that apparently was in him. By one or two seasons' 

 use of such a sire it is possible to undo the improve- 

 ment in a herd it may have cost years of painstaking 

 effort to attain. Hence, in choosino-, one of the first 



