428 DOMESTIC ANIMALS, DAIRYING, ETC. 



with success. The old boar should be kept until the young one is 

 mature. (Mo. Cir. 28.) 



The most detrimental factor to swine breeding is the scrub boar, 

 for he has neither individuality, good breeding, nor any quality 

 worth transmitting. The herd boar should be pure bred and have 

 individual merit and character. Pure breeding should insure prepo- 

 tence in the sire and give uniformity and character to his offspring. 

 The breeder should become a competent judge, and study the type, 

 shape and conformation of his animals under different ages and 

 conditions. (Wis. B. 184.) 



The sire should be strong in the characteristics of the breed and 

 possess the type of market class to which he belongs. While the 

 boar may well have the proper color markings, and points of the 

 breed, it is all important that he should possess a combination of size 

 and quality. A sire of the lard type should be short and broad in 

 the face, broad between the eyes, and have short, broad ears. His 

 neck should rise rapidly behind the ears and widen into a body 

 which is long, uniformly wide and deep. Boars often become too 

 wide and rough in the shoulders, with deep wrinkles in the skin. 

 The thick plates of hard skin, on the sides of the shoulders, are 

 sometimes called "shields." Mature boars are liable to develop 

 massive fore quarters and be narrow behind, with insufficient depth 

 in the hams and twist. Sires of this sort should be avoided. Seek 

 refinement in the head and fore quarters, with a broad, strong, 

 slightly arched back, a wide loin, and wide, deep hams. 



It is imperative that the legs and feet of a boar be short, strong, 

 and sound. The tendency has been to pay particular attention to 

 the hog's conformation of body and too little to his legs and feet. 

 The legs below the knees and hocks should be of medium size and 

 free from fleshiness or wrinkles in the skin. (Wis. B. 184.) 



A new boar should be purchased as often as the sows have 

 passed their prime and are replaced by the offspring of the old boar. 

 If hogs are grown for the market only, it is not necessary to pay a 

 fancy price for a fancy animal which has every bristle of just the 

 right color and pointing in exactly the right direction. The man 

 who is raising hogs to be sold as pure bred breeding animals cannot 

 be too careful to purchase only such as come nearest the ideal shape, 

 color, and style typical of the breed he is using; but for the man 

 who is raising pork and who does not expect to sell fancy breeding 

 animals, slight variations in color, shape and position of ears, and 

 length of tail, are of little importance. What the pork raiser should 

 require in his boar is good form and size without coarseness, good 

 feeding capacity, and a strong constitution. 



In breeding for pork the boar need not have all the finer mark- 

 ings of his breed. Color of hair on the hog makes no difference with 

 the quality of the pork, but he should have a good form, and should 

 be descended from animals having good forms. A poor specimen 

 of a pure-blood animal is little better than a scrub, and should not 

 be used simply because he has a long pedigree. Pedigree is good 

 because it gives prepotency, but form and vigor are better because 



