Breeding Swine. 125 



brought together in the Miami Vallev in Ohio in the 

 middle of the last century. It is said, by the uay, that 

 one sire, purchased from a Polander, was a veritable 

 "Messenger" as the parent of this breed. He seems to 

 have been that one in many thousands the blood of 

 which when multiplied makes the better variety or bet- 

 ter breed. In color these types carried little but black 

 and white. There was brought into the mixture the 

 blood of large white hogs, of coarse black hogs and 

 doubtless the blood of small black hogs of the Eastern 

 continent. The sturdy Ohio breeders used at first 

 mainly the larger constituent elements in irnking up 

 the .Poland-China breed of a third of a century ago. 

 But the atavic elements of the early maturing small 

 hogs remained in the blood of this hybrid breed. At- 

 tenuated by not being allowed to dominate for genera- 

 tions these recessive characters only awaited a chance 

 to become active participants in the general blood mix- 

 ture. In fact, even in the earlier decades of this breed 

 an occasional "chunk" was but a sudden assertion of 

 the inherent force of the latent blood of these more 

 or less remote blocky ancestors. 



A certain general type early became dominant, be- 

 cause the breeders formed an ideal toward which they 

 bred. All who can remember a third of a century back 

 can recall the old type of this most famous breed of 

 hogs that ever lived; size rather large; body long, 

 tending rather to coarseness as shown in the large leg 

 bones and feet ; hair abundant, curly, alternating white 

 and black areas ; ears large and pendant ; vigorous of 

 constitution; rather quiet and sluggish of disposition; 

 bearing large litters with little trouble at farrowing, 

 and generally good milkers. The average of the breed 

 was probably of greater value then than the avers ge 

 Poland-China of today. This is a terrible indictment 

 of the hog-breeding fraternity, but it is a fact more 

 or less clearly sensed by the leading philosophers 

 among the breeders of the present time. In many re- 

 spects the present breed is an improvement, but may 



