No. 3. 



The Berkshire Hog. 



89 



THE BERKSHIRE HOG. 



By the liberality of a valued friend to the 

 Farmers' Cabinet, wo are enabled to give an 

 engraving of the Berkshire hog, from Profes- 

 sor Low's grand work, " Illustrations of tlie 

 breeds of domestic animals of the British 

 Islands." It forms, in the third number of 

 that expensive publication, the last of four 

 plates on the subject of the hog, and is de- 

 cidedly the most valuable of all that have 

 preceded it. It may be considered faitliful in 

 all its parts, the head only excepted, which, 

 in the living animal, has that peculiar fine- 

 ness which ought ever to characterize — and 

 which almost uniformly does characterize — 

 those of that distinguished breed: but as the 

 object was to give a representation of the 

 animal as it appears in Professor Low's book, 

 tliat feature also is retained and delineated, 

 as it is. The plate there, is most beautifully 

 coloured, a fine rich yellow-brown and black, 

 whicli is still descriptive of the true Berk- 

 shire hog. 



Here follows Professor Low's account of 

 tliat peculiar breed of hogs, with remarks on 

 others, with which it has been crossed, and 

 by which the present fashionable breed has 

 been obtained. 



" Those varieties of the swine of England, 

 which have received the name of breeds, 

 have been usually named from the counties, 

 or places wliere they have been rnared in 

 numbers — thus we have the Hampshire, the 

 Suffolk, the Berkshire, and other breeds, 

 each supposed to be distinguished by a set of 



common characters. Of these breeds, one 

 of the earliest improved was the Berkshire, 

 so named from the county of that name ; but 

 the principal improvement of the breed was 

 made in the counties uirther north, chiefly in 

 Leicestershire and Stafibrdshire. It still re- 

 tains, however, its original designation, and 

 the Berkshire has long been known as one of 

 the most generally-spread of the improved 

 breeds of England. 



The true Berkshires are of the larger 

 races of swine, although they fall short in 

 size of some of the older breeds, as the Hamp- 

 shire, the Riidgwick and some others. They 

 are usually of a reddish broicn colour, with 

 brown or black spots — a character which 

 makes it appear that one of the means em- 

 ployed to improve them, was a cross with the 

 wild boar. The Berkshire has long been 

 regarded as one of the superior breeds of 

 England, combining size with a sufficient 

 aptitude to fatten, and as being fitted for pork 

 and bacon ; it has been regarded also as the 

 hardiest of the more improved races. The 

 Berkshire breed has, like every other, been 

 crossed and re-crossed with the Chinese or 

 Ciiinese crosses, so as to lessen the size of 

 the animals, and render them more suited to 

 tlie demand which has arisen for small and 

 delicate pork. Many of the modern breed 

 are nearly black, indicating their approach to 

 tlie Siamese character, and sometimes they 

 are black, broken with white, showing the 

 eflect of the cross with the white Chinese : 



