A MANUAL ON THE HOG. 49 



summer and fall, and fattened the next winter, will make 

 smaller meat, admirably suited for the table of the farmer. 

 Pure-bred boars should be used to cross upon the native, 

 or grade sows for pork. If the grade boars are used, 

 degeneracy will be the result, but the grades are a better 

 " farmer's hog " than the pure breeds. 



For table use, great size is not desirable, but, for laborers, 

 large sides are preferable. These the grades will supply 

 at eighteen months old. It will not be profitable to keep 

 hogs through two winters, unless they subsist mainly upon 

 the productions of the forest, and, hence, we should breed 

 varieties that are capable of being fattened at any age. 



The long-legged, rangy hog will consume more food, in 

 a given time, than the improved grades, and yet is difficult 

 to fatten before he is two years old. Even if he consumed 

 no more in two years than the other in half that time, to 

 produce a given weight of pork, the risk of thieves and 

 disease is greater, from the fact that he is kept on hand 

 longer. The cheapest and best pork that can be raised is 

 from spring pigs, forced through the summer and fall, and 

 butchered the following winter. We need a black, slate- 

 colored, or sandy hog in our climate, to avoid the mange. 

 Hogs degenerate, perhaps more rapidly from "in and-in " 

 breeding than any other animal ; hence, boars should never 

 be allowed to serve their own offspring ; but, either re- 

 placed by a new purchase, or exchanged for another full- 

 blood of the same breed. To insure success, the farmer 

 must definitely determine his policy, both as to the type of 

 hog he wishes to breed, and the bestowal of necessary 

 attention to supply abundant food at all seasons of the year, 

 and adhere -, persistently r , to fixed principles, in both these 

 respects. The introduction of improved breeds will avail 

 but littlq without due attention to the true principles of 

 breeding, the foundation of whicft is, that "like begets 

 like." If, therefore, the parents are inferior, and without 



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