CHAPTER VIII. 



THE TAMWORTH PIG. 



HERE is no variety of pig known in the Britisli 

 islands which has been improved so rapidly as the 

 Tamworth, which, during the past eight years, has 

 emerged from comparative obscurity as a breed 

 peculiar only to a small locality into one common to the whole 

 country, and which is recognised as a national variety. The 

 Tamworth is no new pig, for we are acquainted with breeders 

 who remember it for the past sixty years, and who declare that 

 it was then, and had been during the lifetime of their prede- 

 cessors, a whole coloured deep red pig, long in the snout, a 

 prolific breeder, a kind mother, an admirable forager, which 

 coiild almost be left to find its own living, and at the same time 

 a pig which provided bacon of the highest quality. We have, 

 however, come across at least two opinions equally based upon 

 personal experience, and we arrive at the conclusion that there 

 were at the beginning of the century either two strains of the 

 Tamworth, or one strain which had been much more improved 

 than the other, for where both are described as regards outward 

 characteristics in a similar manner, yet one strain is stated to 

 have been difficult to fatten, and the other one of the quickest 

 to make a return to the farmer. That the Tamworths were 

 prolific there is no doubt, and this valuable point they retain to 

 the present time in perhaps a higher degree than any other of 

 our recognised breeds. Some of the best breeders of to-day 

 declare that young animals of the variety do not fatten until 

 they have reached a certain age, and that the more highly they 

 are fed the more they grow. On the other hand, others have 



