CHAPTER IV. 



THE LARGE WHITE BREED OF PIGS. 



HE distribution of white and black pigs offers a 

 study for the curious. Were we dependent on our 

 own resources, a nice little theory might be set up as 

 to the influence of heat and cold, the pigs in the 

 North of England and Scotland being nearly invariably white, 

 whilst those in the middle and southern counties are equally 

 dark. But we conclude that the range of climate in our island 

 is not enough to account for so great a contrast, and that it is 

 probable that the old English pig, varying considerably in 

 detail according to the conditions under which he was reared, 

 and the hardships to which he was exposed, was more or less 

 white in colour, and that our dark breeds owe their colour to 

 the influence of foreign blood. We admit that our argument is 

 incapable of direct proof ; but we have this negative evidence, 

 that the large white varieties are uncrossed with foreigners. 

 At the present day we find these animals cultivated principally 

 in the counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, and 

 Leicestershire, and it is probable that they are descended pretty 

 directly from the old English pig. Mr. Rowlandson, in his prize 

 essay on the breeding and management of pigs, says : " There 

 are good grounds for supposing that ' the old English hog ' 

 with flop ears was originally the only domestic animal of its 

 kind throughout the kingdom. The genuine old English breed 

 was coarse-boned, long in limb, narrow in the back, and low- 

 shouldered — a form to which they were most probably predisposed 

 from the fact of having to travel far and labour hard for their 

 food, and undergo considerable privations during winter." And 



