CHAPTER LXX 



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. 

 Huff slater 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 Indian- 

 apolis, Indiana. The evidence 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 fixing 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 resemblance in everything but color that they were often face- 

 tiously called " White Berkshires." 



