86 HAKKIS ON THE PIG. 



bacon pigs at nine to ten months, 220 Ibs. to 280 Ibs., but 

 at that age the improved Oxfords are easily brought to 

 400 Ibs." 



BLACK AND BED PIGS. 



" Birmingham has long been one of the greatest pig 

 markets in the kingdom, and the pig-breeding of the 

 district has been not a little affected and improved by the 

 winter fat-stock show, which has for some years past been 

 held there, at Bingley Hall, with great success. The town 

 of Birmingham unites Staffordshire and Warwickshire. 

 The old Warwickshire breed was a white or party-colored 

 animal of the old-fashioned farm-yard type, and has never 

 been improved into a special breed. The Staffordshire 

 breed was the ' Tamworth.' At present the Tamworth 

 are rapidly going out of favor with farmers, from the 

 want of aptitude to fatten, and are being replaced by use- 

 ful pigs, the result of miscellaneous crosses of no special 

 character. The best are the middle-sized white pigs, a 

 cross of the Cumberland-York with local white breeds, 

 often called the Cheshire. The northern cross improves 

 the constitution, and gives hair of the right quality, 'hard, 

 but not too much or too coarse.' 



" At Bingley Hall the class of Berkshire breeding-pigs 

 under six months old generally brings from twenty to 

 twenty-five pens. At present, however, the Berkshires in 

 the Birmingham district are chiefly in the hands of ama- 

 teur farmers, tenant farmers not having taken very kindly 

 to them. 



" But the breed must be spreading rapidly if the ready 

 sale of the young pigs at the Birmingham show be taken 

 as evidence. 



"Mr. Joseph Smith, of Henley-in-Arden, one of the most 

 successful exhibitors of Berkshires, keeps three or four 

 sows, and sells all their young ; and others find the de- 

 mand for young pigs constant -throughout the year. 



