THE HOG. 203 



TME DOi^IESTIC IIOCJ : 



TO BEEED, FEED, CUT UP, AND CUEE. 



VARIETIES OF THE HOG.— There exist only three actual varieties of 

 the domestic hog — the Berkshire, Chinese, and Highland, or Irish; all 

 other breeds, described as separate varieties, are only otishoots from one 

 or the other of these three main stocks. 



The True Berkshire Pig is black, or black and white, short-legged, full 

 and round in the loins, rather fine in the hair, the ears small and erect, 

 and the snout not lengthy. This description of animal forms a striking 

 contrast with the long-sided, convex-backed, lob-eared, long-legged, and 

 shambling brute which was common in many parts of Great Britain, 

 and almost universal in Ireland, thirty or forty years ago, and which 

 still, without any improvement in form, is the general description of the 

 pig throughout France and most of Germany. 



In giving preference, however, to the Berkshire breed, it is not to be 

 understood that we consider them handsome in a positive sense, or per- 

 fect models of good breeding and propriety in their habits and manners. 

 No dumj)y animal, with its belly near the ground, with four short 

 crutches for legs, hair by no means silky, a little curled tail, and small, 

 sunk eyes, peering into every hole and corner and never looking upward 

 to the glorious fii-mament, can be called an absolute beauty ; but, com- 

 pared with other races of swine, the Berkshire are handsome ; and, as 

 to their habits and manners, they have no little merit; for, considering 

 the natural dispositions of the hog family, and the contemptuous man- 

 ner in which they are spoken of and treated everywhere (except in cer- 

 tain parts of Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland, where pigs are 

 privileged orders, and experience such respect as to be permitted, and 

 even invited, to occupy the same room with their masters, by day and 

 night, in consideration of their paying the house-rent, and supplying the 

 means of purchasing salt, candles, and soap), the Beikshire race have 

 unquestionable merit, and appear to respect the decencies of life. Their 

 females have never been known to commit infanticide, as some other 

 domesticated tribes of swine undoubtedly do, from what we consider a 

 depraved taste; nor have either sex of this tribe been ever justly ac- 

 cused, or even suspected, of that cannibal propensity which has led in- 

 dividuals of certain other tribes of the great hog family to seize upon 

 the tender babe in the cradle and devour it, "marrow, bones, and all I" 

 They (the Berkshircs) are so docile and gentle that a little boy or girl 

 may drive them to and from the pasture-field or the common without 

 liaving their authority disputed ; and, when ranging about in the happy 

 consciousness of liberty, though they may sometimes poke their noses 

 where their interference is not desired, they do not perpetrate half the 

 mischief to the turf which other classes of swine are prone to commit. 

 They seem disposed to content themselves with the grass on the surface 

 of tb^ soil, without uprooting it in search of delicacies that may lie 



