ON AGRICULTURE TO IRELAND 101 



Marketing 



Pigs are bred all over Ireland, but much of the trade is 

 contined to the province of Munster. The reason for this is 

 obvious. Munster is, and has been for long, the principal dair}'- 

 ing province in Ireland. Skimmed or separated milk is a bye- 

 product of the dairy, and there is no more profitable way of 

 utilising it than by feeding pigs. In the north less attention has 

 been paid to breeding, because the pig has been a less important 

 animal on the farm. But while the shrewd farmers of Ulster 

 have never had quite the best breeds, they turned out, in the days 

 when well-bred pigs were not in vogue in the south, and they 

 are turning out to-day, very serviceable saleable animals. The 

 methods of marketing in north and south are different. It is 

 needless to say that while Irish cattle are sold as stores, and carry 

 with them to the farms of Scotland and England the fertility of 

 Irish soils, pigs are finished and sold fat. In the north the 

 farmers usually kill them on the farm. They utilise the offal in the 

 farmhouse and send the carcases to market. It is different in the 

 south. The southern farmers sometimes sell their pigs when 

 they are ten weeks old. The buyers feed them for six weeks. 

 They are then sold as stores. The purchaser finishes them and 

 sells to pig-dealers, and ultimately the fat pig finds its way 

 to the curing-house. There is a good deal of middleman's profit 

 from the birth to the death of the Irish pig thus marketed, but all 

 the southern pigs are not so dealt with. Sometimes the breeder 

 feeds and sells fat, which is the most profitable method. In 

 recent years, too, the large southern curers have sent agents into 

 the country to buy from the farmers direct. The agent, on a sale 

 being completed, attaches a numbered tin label to an ear of each 

 animal. He consigns them to the bacon-curer, leaving with the 

 owner a notice stating the number on the label and the conditions 

 on which they are received, as well as tlie price for each quality 

 of pig. The same particulars are sent to the bacon-curer. The 

 animals are killed the day after they are purchased, and cheques 

 for the amount sent to the different owners. The pigs are paid 

 for, not according to weight, but according to quality, the biggest 

 price being given for " sizeable " pigs, the class which is in most 

 demand by the public, and the worst price being given for " heavy 

 overweights," which are of comparatively little value. This 

 method of marketing is said to have had a good effect on the 

 farmers, inasmuch as it has taught them to be good judges of pigs, 

 both in regard to weight and quality, and has shown them the 

 necessity of proper breeding and feeding if their pigs are to obtain 

 top prices. 



Bacon-Curing 



Tradition says — with what amount of truth wo know not — that 

 the birthplace of the curing industry was Baltinglas in County 

 Wicklow. When it began there, or elsewhere, the methods were 

 not the methods of to-day. The pig was knocked down with a 



