32 SWINE. 



Did you ever go to a human " Picnic," or social '* Gathering," and 

 see conduct somewhat similar ? 



You say pork is not fit to eat, because so many hogs die of the 

 Cholera. Why not refuse to eat beef because thousands upon thou- 

 sands of cattle die annually from Murrain, Spanish Fever, or Pleuro 

 Pneumonia ? 



*' But pork is full of Trichinse, little thread-like animals, invisible to 

 the naked eye, and yet capable of riddling the man who swallows them, 



like a piece of perforated card board, and making him die the 



most horrible death it is possible to imagine ; being burnt at the stake 

 is nothing to it !" 



Friends, do your know that such thread-like, parasitic animals are 

 to be found in all organized living beings — man not excepted ? It is 

 a fact ; but if you think you have enough already, just have your 

 pork as thoroughly cooked as you do your beef, and you will make no 

 additions from either source, for the degree of heat necessary to cook 

 meat is fatal to all animal life. Only such persons as have eaten large 

 quantities of ham or other pork raw, have suffered from Trichinas. 



Perhaps you think you don't like to eat them after they are cooked. 

 Why not eat such small animals as well as large ones ? And then too 

 why not refuse to drink water, because careful microscopic observations 

 and calculations prove that a single drop of what looks and tastes like 

 pure water, sometimes contains millions of living animals ? Rather 

 small, to be sure, but then, think of the number ! 



Having shown you the absurdity of some of your objections to the 

 Hog and his flesh, which we call pork, let us gently remind you of a 

 few arguments in their favor. 



He (the hog) is emphatically the poor man's beast. How many 

 an otherwise waste morsel is claimed and relished by him, and in due 

 time transmuted into delicious pork, ready to be eaten as spare-rib, 

 steak, or cutlet, or turned into savory ham or sausages that have no 

 bark nor wag ! 



He extracts roots as readily as the greatest mathematician in the 

 world, and makes more use of them when they are out. Noxious weeds 

 he either eats and reduces them to a state in which they may contribute 

 to the increase of nobler growths, or mixes them at once into the man- 

 ure heap, the Farmer's mine of wealth. Almost his whole support till 

 the last few weeks of his life may be drawn from what must otherwise 

 be wholly wasted in a family or the kitchen garden. To have two or 

 three hundred pounds of meat at such trifling cost, is no mean item \xx 

 a poor man's income. It is a powerful help in making the two ends 

 meet. 



But we all know how great is the demand, and how profitable the 

 business of raising pork for market. Some farmers, we know, say there 

 is no profit in keeping them, but with their management something is 

 wrong, or they do not tell us a true story. Perhaps they have no such 

 stock as was exhibited in our pens to-day. A man who in these days 



