200 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



well bedded. The other day, we took ten full cartloads of 

 splendid manure from the pen where that one pig is kept. 

 You must stop your nostrils, and everything else, to handle it. 



Mr. Cheever. In connection wdth this subject of the 

 breeding of pigs, and inbreeding, I would like to state the 

 result of the practice of one of my neighbors, Mr. Levi T. 

 Ballon, of Woonsocket, R. I. He commenced breeding pigs 

 — the improved Suffolk breed — about twelve years ago, from 

 a boar and sow which he bred, without taking any new blood 

 in. He has bred in every conceivable way, — mother and 

 son, father and daughter, and brother and sister, — and has 

 raised an average of about one hundred and ten pigs per year ; 

 iu ten years raising eleven hundred. He tells me that among 

 those eleven hundred pigs there has not been one deformed 

 pig, — every one has been perfect. That is very unusual, in 

 ordinary breeding. It is unusual to raise even a hundred 

 pigs without having deformities of some kind, iu connection 

 with the sexual organs, or in some other way. 



Perhaps I ought to state, further, that he has a theory of 

 his own. He always keeps a male for the service of his 

 neighbors, but he never allows any neighbor's sow to be 

 brought to his pen until he has done using him himself. His 

 breeders are kept in the very best health possible, with his 

 knowledge and ability, and after he has used them himself, 

 then his neighbors have the advantage of them. He accounts 

 for his success in that way. That is a case of more thorough 

 inbreeding than almost any other I know of in the country. 



Mr. Parsons. I knew a celebrated breeder of Shorthorns 

 in Western New York who has bred in-and-in for some five or 

 six generations, very closely, and he has some of the finest 

 specimens of Shorthorns that I know of. 



Mr. Stone, of Westborough. I have had, in former years, 

 a little experience iu breeding pigs. In 1849, I commenced 

 with a breed of hogs which I bred for more than ten years, 

 and never went out of my yard ; crossing mother and son, 

 brother and sister. At the end of that time, I purchased a 

 hog of Mr. D wight, — one similar to those, — and they im- 

 proved very much. They were well known in Brookfield, 

 and the neighboring towns for twenty miles around. There 

 was perfect symmetry in the development of those hogs. I 



