BKEED3 OF PIGS IN THE UNITED STATES. 09 



articles at this time, we find that the statements were not 

 as highly colored as might have been expected. As a 

 rule, the pigs were quite as good as they were represented 

 to be. It was hardly to be expected that breeders should 

 say to intending purchasers, " It is of no use for you to 

 get a well-bred pig unless you are prepared to give it bet- 

 ter treatment than you do the common sort." The trouble 

 was not in the pigs, but in the farmers. Berkshires were 

 fully as valuable as the breeders claimed, and yet a great 

 and wide-spread disappointment soon manifested itself. 

 For a time the supply was not equal to the demand, and 

 doubtless hundreds of pigs were sold as " pure Berk- 

 shires " that were nothing but grades. But the general 

 complaint was that the Berkshires were not large enough. 

 The advocates of the breed met this complaint by state- 

 ments of weights, giving many instances where the Berk 

 shires and their grades dressed 400 Ibs. at a year old, and 

 that at 18 or 20 months old, they could be made to weigh 

 500 or 550 Ibs., dressed. One of the prominent breeders 

 stated that he had a thorough-bred Berkshire that gained 

 496 Ibs. in 166 days, and when killed, dressed 626 Ibs. 



To meet the demand for large pigs, fresh importations 

 were made of the largest Berkshires that could be found 

 in England. One boar, " Windsor Castle," imported in 

 1841, by Mr. A. B. Allen, it was claimed would weigh, at 

 two years old, when in good flesh, 800 Ibs. At the same 

 time, Mr. Allen deprecated the prevailing taste for such 

 large hogs, and very justly argued that smaller pigs, with 

 less offal, would mature earlier and fatten more rapidly on 

 a given amount of food. But then, as now, the demand 

 was for the largest pigs that could be found, and it is said 

 that this very boar was afterwards sold to a gentleman in 

 Ohio for one thousand dollars. 



But the excitement soon began to abate. Farmers who 

 had paid $50, $100, and, in one instance we have met with, 

 $250 for a single pair of Berkshires, found that their 



