LARGE VS. SMALL BREEDS AND CROSSES. 33 



one of the best pigs of the small black breeds, well calcu- 

 lated for producing pork and hams of the finest quality 

 for fashionable markets ; but its greatest value is as a cross 

 for giving quality and maturity to black pigs of a coarser, 

 hardier kind. It occupies, with respect to the black 

 breeds, the same position that the small Cumberland- Yorks 

 do as to the white breeds that is to say, an improved 

 Essex boar is sure to improve the produce of any large 

 dark sow." 



Again: "The Berkshire breed have benefited much 

 from the improved Essex cross. The best Devonshire 

 pigs have a large infusion of this strain. The improved 

 Dorsets, the most successful black pigs ever shown at the 

 Smithfield Club Shows, have borrowed their heads, at 

 least from the Boxted [Essex] breed." 



A Bedfordshire farmer writes : " The Woburn breed 

 described by Youatt was a good sort of pig, of no partic- 

 ular character, except great aptitude to fatten. They 

 were discontinued in consequence of the sows being very 

 bad sucklers, in favor of a cross-bred animal, the produce 

 of Berkshire sows and white Suffolk boars, the best that 

 could be got. These are prolific, of good quality, can be 

 fed at any age and to a fair medium weight. A cross 

 like this pays the farmer best." 



Mr. Thomas Wright says, the cross of the Berkshire 

 with the Tarn worth " produces the most profitable bacon 

 pigs in the kingdom, the Berkshire blood giving an extra- 

 ordinary tendency to feed, and securing the early maturity 

 in which alone the Tamworth breed is deficient. The 

 cross of the Berkshire boar with large white sows has been 

 found to produce most satisfactory results to plain farm- 

 ers." 



The editor of the work from which these extracts are 



made says, that the current of opinion among English 



farmers, both as regards sheep and pigs, is towards crosses. 



" Breeding pure-bred stock pays well as a separate busi- 



2* 



