202 How THE FARM PAYS. 



in both hair and skin; but in dressing, the black skin comes off with 

 the hair, and the pork dresses perfectly white. The hair is fine and 

 glossy, but rather thin, and is quite free from all tendency to the 

 woolly undercoat which is so much disliked in pigs. There is a white 

 splash on the face; the feet are white, and so is the end of the taiL 

 These peculiar marks are all reproduced very exactly in the pure breed. 

 The ears are pricked and very small; the face is short and dished; the 

 neck is very short and thick; the shoulders broad; the sides are deep, 

 and the hams broad and thick, the legs being very short and the bone 

 light and fine. This form makes the very best ham and bacon hog^ 

 and as its habit is to make a large proportion of lean meat to the fat 

 produced, and to produce more meat on the same feed and to do it 

 more quickly than any other breed, and the meat being sweeter and 

 of better quality, I must say I know of no other variety of swine that 

 is so desirable for the farmer for hams, shoulders and bacon. 



A POLAND-CHINA HOG. 



Next to the Berkshire comes the Poland-China, which is quite 

 popular in the West, where pork growing is one of the most prominent 

 industries of the farm and consumes a considerable part of the large corn 

 crop. This hog is mixed white and black in color, the ears are lopped, 

 the carcass is large and fat. It therefore suits the pork packers, whose 

 aim is fat pork for packing, rather than meaty pork for curing for 

 sides and bacon. The importance of good breeding of swine is appa- 

 rent when we consider that about ten million hogs are packed every 

 year in the West and that the whole stock in the country is more than 

 forty millions. 



There is another black breed of swine, which has no white mark 

 about it, and which is popular in some places. This is the Essex. It 

 is not as good a bacon hog as the Berkshire, although it is excellent 

 when young for light pork. When full grown it is fat, but it is not 

 large enough for the packer's use. Among farmers who prefer white 



