102 HARRIS ON THE PIG. 



words, as far as the production of pork is concerned, we 

 get a perfect pig and there the improvement ends. We 

 have attained our object, and all that we have to do is to 

 repeat the process. To select boars from these grade pigs, 

 and to use them in hopes of getting something better, is 

 mere folly. It can lead to nothing but disappointment. 

 And yet this is the common practice of those who are, 

 once in a while, induced to try the thorough-breds. They 

 soon find themselves possessed of a stock of non-descript 

 pigs, none of them equal to the first cross, and some of 

 them inferior to the sow first put to the thorough-bred 

 boar. Then we hear complaints of the " degeneracy" 

 of the improved breeds, when, in point of fact, no sensi- 

 ble man could expect any other result. Another cause 

 of the unpopularity of the thorough-bred English pigs is, 

 the wretched treatment to which they are often subjected. 

 When we first commenced keeping thorough-bred pigs, a 

 farmer of the neighborhood who, some years before, had 

 paid a high price for a pair of Suffolk pigs, and who failed 

 to raise a single thorough-bred pig from them, remarked, 

 " You will soon get tired of this business. I have tried 

 it. They won't breed. You are keeping them too fat. 

 The only way to treat them is to turn them to a straw 

 stack, and let them live on that." The fact that he never 

 raised a pig from his sow did not commend his treatment, 

 and we continued feeding our pigs sufficient food to keep 

 them growing rapidly, and have had no cause to regret it. 

 The only sow that has ever failed to breed with us was a 

 Prince Albert Suffolk, purchased in the neighborhood 

 from a farmer who had probably tried the " straw-stack " 

 mode of feeding. 



The aim of a good breeder of pigs is to get a breed 

 that will grow rapidly and mature early. And the better 

 the breed, the more rapidly will they grow. But the best 

 stove in the world cannot give out heat without a supply 

 of fuel ; neither can the best-bred pig in the world grow 



