PRINCIPLES OF STOCK-BREEDING. 



Virginia, relates his experience as follows : " Three 

 years ago one of my Essex gilts was served by a little 

 sandy ' scrub ' boar that slipped through the fence from 

 the road-side. . . . The result was a litter of four pigs, 

 two pure black, the others sandy, with black spots. 

 In due time she was again served by one of my Essex 

 boars. Two pigs of the resulting litter were again 

 sandy, with black spots. ... To give this instance its 

 just weight as evidence on the point in question, it is 

 proper to state that the sow, and the boar by which 

 she was served the second time, were pedigree ani- 

 mals of undoubted purity and excellent descent ; that 

 no pigs except thorough-bred Essex are kept on the 

 farm for any purpose, and that sows brought here for 

 service by boars are not allowed to run with my ani- 

 mals. After getting one litter of half-blood?, thorough 

 precautions were taken to prevent a repetition of the 

 mishap." l 



Two similar cases have come under my own ob- 

 servation, under circumstances that do not admit of 

 doubt as to the parentage of the offspring that in- 

 herited a stain through a previous impregnation of 

 their dam. Several years ago a Chester white sow, 

 belonging to the Michigan State Agricultural College, 

 had a litter of cross-bred pigs by an Essex boar. The 

 pigs w r ere all more or less spotted with black, but in 

 several of them the white predominated. 



The next season the same sow had pigs by a pure 

 Suffolk boar, but they all had black spots, and some 

 of them were more than one-half black. One remark- 

 able feature of this case was the peculiar distribution 



1 Country Gentleman, 1877, p. 462. 



