CHAPTER LXXIII 



THE CHESHIRE 



The native home of the Cheshire pig is Jefferson County, New 

 York, in the north-central part of the state, on the eastern shore 

 of Lake Ontario. The climate is quite cold and rough in winter, 

 and the conditions as a whole are not ideal for swine raising. 



The origin of the Cheshire dates back to about 1855. The 

 cause for the use of the name of the breed is unknown. About 

 1855 Messrs. Hungerford and Brodie of Jefferson County imported 

 from England a Yorkshire boar of the large or middle class. This 

 was used upon sows in the county, and soon after White Suffolk 

 blood was mingled with the descendants of this boar. Early in the 

 sixties A. C. Clark of Belleville and S. P. Huffslater of Watertown 

 began to show pigs of this class at the fairs. Later, in 1870, 

 Mr. Clark won the Packer's Prize of $500 for the best pen of pigs 

 exhibited at a fair at St. Louis, Missouri. The name " Cheshire," 

 or "Jefferson County," was officially adopted in 1872 by the 

 Swine Breeders' Convention at Indianapolis, Indiana. The evi- 

 dence indicates that the breed is the result of constant crossing 

 and breeding of Large Yorkshires and White Suffolks to the 

 white pigs in Jefferson County. In 1876 Colonel F. D. Curtis, a 

 prominent New York live-stock authority, wrote Mr. F. D. Coburn 

 that he knew "of but one breeder of these pigs in Jefferson County." 

 Mr. J. H. Sanders bred these pigs pure for about seven years in 

 Iowa, and wrote Mr. Coburn as follows : 



I produced all the different types of the Yorkshire from the Large York down 

 to the Lancashire Short-face. . . . The type which I finally succeeded in fix- 

 ing upon the Cheshires, as bred by me, was almost identical in size, form, and 

 quality with the most approved Berkshires. Indeed, so marked was this resem- 

 blance in everything but color that they were often facetiously called " White 

 Berkshires." 



About 1873 E. W. Davis began to improve this pig and added 

 much to the permanence of type. 



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