THE THIN RIND OR HAMPSHIRE 



553 



won first prize for barrows with five Thin Rinds which averaged 

 493 pounds each at eighteen months old, one of which won 

 the championship in the slaughter test. 



The fecundity of the Thin Rind pig is of superior character. 

 The sows usually farrow litters of ten or twelve pigs after the first 

 farrowing, and make excellent mothers and nurses. In this respect 

 they rank with the most prolific breeds of American ancestry. 



Grade or cross-bred Thin Rind pigs are not common. The use 

 of the pure-bred boar on common sows will result in a more 

 prolific stock, leaning toward the bacon type. Superior Thin 

 Rind boars should add vigor and killing quality to the offspring 

 of a certain class of high-fleshed sows of chunky type. 



The Thin Rind as a grazer ranks high in Kentucky and else- 

 where, where pigs range more or less for mast, and seek for feed in 

 field and forest. It was this quality, together with that of fecund- 

 ity, which added to the popularity of the breed where known. 



The quality of Thin Rind meat is distinctly superior. Natu- 

 rally the breed belongs to the bacon class, but when persistently 

 fed corn for generations it loses some of its bacon-producing 

 character. Yet in the slaughter tests these pigs have made a 

 good showing. At the 1901 International Live Stock Exposition 

 at Chicago the second prize for both pens of five barrows of 

 export bacon type, and for carcass weighing 300 pounds or over, 

 was awarded Thin Rind barrows exhibited by Mr. Goodwine of 

 Illinois. At the 1905 International Mr. E. C. Stone won the 

 grand championship in barrow class over all breeds. Thin Rind 

 meat is of excellent grain with a desirable proportion of lean to fat. 



An organization to promote Thin Rind interests was incorpo- 

 rated by six Boone County, Kentucky, farmers in 1893, they form- 

 ing the American Thin Rind Record Association. At this time 

 about twelve herds of swine of this breed were eligible for regis- 

 tration, mainly located in Kentucky and Indiana. In 1904 this 

 association changed its name to the American Hampshire Swine 

 Record Association. No herdbook has yet been published. 



The distribution of the Thin Rind breed is not extensive. It 

 has long been bred and fed in Kentucky, and herds in a small 

 way have been kept in Indiana and Illinois. The popularity of 

 this breed is restricted, but has gained somewhat in recent years. 



