THE BERKSHIRE 175 



in the East and Gentry in the West" who put Berkshires on the 

 American map. 



An English Authority. One of the most interesting contribu- 

 tions to the history of the breed is a letter which I received a year 

 ago from Edgar Humfrey, secretary of the British Berkshire 

 Society, whose father, the late Heber Humfrey, was the first sec- 

 retary of the British Berkshire Society and the most noted breeder 

 of Berkshires in his day. Edgar Humfrey at my request visited 

 a number of the older breeders of Berkshires in hi$ country, and 

 obtained from them valuable data with reference to the Berkshire 

 of England from a time dating back as far as 60 3 r ears ago. These 

 data supplemented by notes left by his late father, who began the 

 active breeding of Berkshires in 1862, give a fund of authentic 

 information which I believe should be preserved in book form. 

 J. Pittman King of North Stoke, Wallingford, is the oldest living 

 breeder of Berkshires in England today. He started his herd in 

 1862. He states that in 1850 there were in Berkshire, England, 

 several large herds which had been carefully bred. These hogs 

 possessed great length of body and rather long heads, with ears 

 standing forward. The general color of these hogs was black, with 

 occasional splashings of white, but at that period no special effort 

 was being made to breed white points in any particular place. Mr. 

 Pittman states that in about 1855 more attention was being given 

 to setting a standing of white points on a black ground. Mr. King 

 was one of the founders of the British Berkshire Society in 1884, 

 several years after the American Berkshire Association was estab- 

 lished. 



Russell Swanwick of Cirencester, another English breeder, en- 

 gaged in the business in 1867, and is still in the ranks of active 

 production. He states in 1867 that the color of the Berkshire in 

 the middle 50 's was somewhat similar to that of the present. He 

 also states that as late as 1870 certain crosses of the "small black ' : 

 (originally the Chinese or Japanese breed) was introduced by cer- 

 tain English breeders to check the apearance of too much white, 

 which had appeared, due no doubt to a white or spotted cross, 

 which had been used at an earlier date. He also believes that this 

 black cross resulted in the modern shortened snout with its acute 

 angle, the black wrinkled nose, and at the same time produced a 

 consistently better crest. T. S. Cooper imported a large number of 

 the best hogs bred by Mr. Swanwick in the early 70 's. Quoting 

 from Mr. Humfrey 's letter: 



"In summing up the evidence of those in England who can 

 speak with authority it is clear that the Berkshire was commencing 

 to assume a separate stock of its own about 1830, and that it con- 

 tinued to thrive with amazing fertility and ever-increasing quality 

 over the next 15 years, when we find it in the hands of many enter* 

 prising country gentry, who may be called the earliest pioneers of 

 the breed, since it was in their time that the construction in color 

 was definitely fixed, and bred to, and the type improved. In the 

 next decade from 1860, several other well-known breeders came 



