246 THE BACON CURING INDUSTRY 



consumer also reaps advantages in having delicious mild food at all 

 seasons, instead of highly salted and overheld bacon." 



An important step in the direction of swine improvement was taken at 

 the Albert Institute, Glasnevin, County Dublin, in the sixties. 



The present herd of pigs at the Albert Farm has been in existence 

 for a long time. About forty years ago the late Prince Albert sent from his 

 herd at Windsor several anmials of the type then known as the Improved 

 Yorkshire. The foundation of the Glasnevin herd was laid by crossing 

 these Windsor pigs with the best animals from Irish herds. The Large 

 Yorkshire pigs were unknown in Ireland until the early fifties, when Wain- 

 man, of Yorkshire, and Duckering, of Lincoln, had produced a variety of 

 Yorkshires of enormous proportions. Other breeders followed, notably the 

 Earl of Ellesmere, Mr. Sanders Spencer, of Huntingdonshire, and Mr. John 

 Barron, Barrowash, Derby, from whose herds the best animals were selected 

 about twenty years ago. By the selection of sires, discarding at once any 

 animal that showed the least trace of the Smaller York breed, and by care- 

 fully selecting the true type of Large York, a herd has been secured which 

 possesses all the characteristics of the best strains of the Large White 

 Yorkshire pigs. The object kept prominently in view has been to produce 

 animals that will grow quickly, and attain to a great size and weight with a 

 minimum amount of offal. All the stock pigs now on hands are remarkable 

 for their even-fleshed bodies, good hams, straight legs, thin skins, and 

 large quantity of silky hair. The herd is kept in a normal breeding condi- 

 tion, and none of them are made up for show. 



A few photographs of swine from the Glasnevin herd accompany this 

 article. 



About 1 877 some of the bacon curers in Munster made efforts to improve 

 the pigs in the districts from which they drew their supplies, but it was not 

 until about ten years later that any organised effort was made by the mem- 

 bers of the provision curing trade to get the farmers to breed the class of 

 pigs most profitable to themselves and most suitable for the production of 

 high class bacon. Munster had taken the lead in the bacon curing business, 

 owing, probably, to its being the best dairying district in the country, but a 

 great part of its supplies of pigs was drawn from Connaught. There the 

 pigs had remained poor in quality, bad in shape, and black in colour. Boars 

 of the Large White Yorkshire breed were imported and sent to remedy this, 

 but for a very long time much difficulty was experienced in getting the 

 farmers to take advantage of the opportunities for improving the pigs. They 

 still clung to the long-legged, flat-hammed animal, whose unthriftiness was 

 in sad contrast to his appetite, with the result that for years the prices 

 quoted by the bacon merchants for Connaught pigs were always a couple of 

 shiUings per cwt. under the prices quoted for those in Munster. Perse- 

 verance eventually conquered, and to-day as fine pigs can be found in Con- 

 naught as in any other province. 



The South of Ireland Bacon Curers' Pig Improvement Association has 

 three breeding establishments, one at Limerick, one at Cork, and another 

 in Waterford. To each of these is attached a skilled inspector whose duty 

 it is to keep in constant touch with the boar-keepers in his district, to supply 

 them with boars bred at these establishments or purchased from the herds 

 of reliable breeders, such boars being calculated to rectify the faults that 

 may be noticed generally in the pigs of districts where they are stationed, 

 and to prevent in-and-in breeding. We are informed that this Association 



