THE HOG AS A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 93 



or, perhaps, rather did. Formerly, hogs of the pure breed were 

 often found to weigh from 800 to 960 Ibs. ; and it is recorded that 

 one bred at Petworth, in Sussex, measured 7 feet 7 inches from the 

 tip of the snout to the root of the tail, 7 feet 10 inches in girth round 

 the centre, 5 feet round the neck, and 2 feet across the span of the 

 back. Height 3 feet 9 inches. It was remarkable that this huge 

 animal was a moderate consumer of food; his allowance being 

 about two bushels and three pecks of ground oats, peas, and barley, 

 per week. 



The present Berkshire breed are moderate-sized beasts, roundly 

 made, short in the limb, and with a short arched neck, with heavy 

 cheeks, sharp ears, an abruptly-rising forehead, short in the snout, 

 well-barrelled, broad-backed, and clean in the limbs; some are 

 sandy-colored or whitish, spotted with black, but most are either 

 white or black, or half white and half black, a coloring indicative of 

 a mixture of the Neapolitan and the Chinese, as well as of the 

 Suffolk strain. 



We believe that rather small (not too small) and quickly fatten- 

 ing breeds are, from first to last, the most profitable ; indisputably 

 they afford the best meat, in whatever way it is prepared. 



The new breeds now to be seen in Berkshire are but thinly clothed, 

 and are said to be somewhat tender, a circumstance in that sunny 

 county of little consequence, for the farmer's straw-yard supplies 

 abundant shelter and comfort. 



Around Henley in Oxfordsire, on the banks of the Thames, and 

 about Dorking in Surrey, cross breeds of the Berkshire strain pre- 

 vail ; although in the latter county the improved Essex breed is 

 held in great estimation. 



There are few counties in England into which the Berkshire breed 

 of pigs has not penetrated; it is everywhere valued for its ex- 

 cellent qualities, its fair, moderate size, its small bones, its thin skin, 

 its fattening qualities, and excellence of its flesh. First-rate hogs 

 of this breed have been reared in distant counties. Through Mid- 

 dlesex, Hartfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Leicestershire, the Berk- 

 shire breed has extended itself, modifying the old races, not without 

 other crossings ; indeed, it must be confessed that the modern sys- 

 tem of interbreeding renders it difficult to tell the original stock on 

 which the grafts have been made ; or rather, what strain shows itself 

 the most prominently. 



In Berkshire it is the general custom to singe the hogs after being 

 killed, and not to remove the bristles by means of hot water and 

 scraping; nor do they as a rule smoke the flitches after salting, but 

 merely dry them. The same remark applies more or less to the 

 adjacent counties; for example, the bacon sold in Henley is un- 

 smoked. In fact, the taste for smoked bacon and hams seems to a 

 certain degree to be confined to London, as far as England is con- 



