CHAPTER XXI. 

 THE AMERICAN OR LARD-TYPE HOG. 



The United States has created comparatively few of the 

 breeds now found within her borders. By the time this coun- 

 try reached that stage in her live-stock development when im- 

 provement in domestic animals became imperative, European 

 nations had met and solved a similar problem by the creation 

 of numerous useful breeds. It was but natural, therefore, that 

 many of these foreign breeds were imported to this country, 

 and it was fortunate indeed that most of them proved fully 

 capable of fulfilling the requirements of our stock growers. We 

 were thus afforded an easy short cut across what would have 

 been a long, laborious period in the development of our live- 

 stock industry. We borrowed whenever such procedure was 

 practicable, and the fact that we have never found it really 

 necessary to create a breed of draft or carriage horses, beef, 

 dairy, or dual-purpose cattle, mutton sheep, or bacon hogs shows 

 how great is our indebtedness to the breeders of Europe. 



Our needs were not entirely met, however, for we have 

 created a breed of trotting horses, a breed of saddle horses, a 

 breed of fine-wooled sheep, and a number of breeds of lard-type 

 swine. We have also found it necessary to modify slightly 

 some of the breeds we have adopted, and to our credit it may 

 be said that we have made certain changes in some of these 

 adopted breeds which, as viewed from the standpoint of American 

 conditions and requirements, represent decided improvements. 

 The Polled Shorthorn, the Polled Hereford, the "American-type" 

 Hereford, and the "American-type" Berkshire are examples of 

 such modifications. 



The extended patronage which we have given to foreign 

 stock and the lack of necessity for developing breeds of our 

 own, while highly advantageous, has tended to dim our own 

 glory as a live-stock breeding nation. If, because of this fact, 

 our live-stock industry needs a redeeming feature, it is furnished 

 by the creation of a distinctly American type of hog, which 

 includes several breeds. European breeds of swine proved so 

 fully incompetent to make pork under American conditions that 

 our breeders found it necessary to create distinctly new breeds 



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