56 



Hogs increased and multiplied, but we have no evidence 

 that any attempt was made to improve the breed in this coun- 

 try, until after the war of the Revolution. In the summer, 

 the young pigs were generally turned into the woods to graze, 

 or later in the fall to feast upon the products of the forest — 

 great hogs from little acorns grew. The winter pens were 

 small, cold structures, with adjacent yards which have since 

 been well described by Gen. Oliver as " a stew of stercoraceous 

 stench — a Serbonian bog of fathomless filth and miasmatic 

 putresence." 



Col. Timothy Pickering was the first Essex farmer, — so far 

 as your committee can learn, — who systematically attempted 

 to improve our breed of hogs. Visiting his friend Col. Ridge- 

 ley, near Philadelphia, he there saw some of the genuine Wo- 

 burn breed, descended from a pair which had been sent by the 

 Duke of Bedford, who had introduced them to President 

 Wafhington, and he obtained a pair for liis farm at Wenhara. 

 They were white, with more or less small black or red spots, 

 round in the carcase, small limbed and headed, and for some 

 years they were in great demand. 



The superiority of these Woburn or Bedford hogs over the 

 black gaunt breed generally raised, prompted a general im- 

 provement of the Essex county porkers, and some valuable 

 crosses were obtained by the ship-captains who then sailed from 

 Salem and Newburyport to China and to Africa. Newbury 

 is said to have thus produced a local breed and we read in a 

 Kennebunk paper of February 17, 1819 : " Mr. David Nich- 

 ols, a worthy member of the Society of Friends, has this day 

 killed a hog aged 21 months, 13 days, half blooded, of the 

 Newbury Whites : his girth six feet five inches ; unusually short 

 in proportion to his size ; weighing with the rough fat 670 lbs. 

 precisely ; having gained at least one lb. per day since he was 

 littered : he was sold for twelve and a half cents per pound." 



Byfield parish, in the town of Newbury, produced in due 

 time a breed of hogs, which was regarded as the best in the 

 country. The progenitor was a hog, probably brought from 



