74 



less they were ordered out. Admonition, however, seems lost upon 

 such persons. Slovenliness and sluttishness are incorrigible vices ; 

 and the fate of such persons seems, as it were, in despair ol' reforma- 

 tion, irrevocably pronounced. 



VII. SWINE. 



Of the swine of Berkshire county, there is little remarkable. I 

 met repeatedly with a breed called the Mocho breed, which are much 

 esteemed. I have found them in difTerent parts of the state, but I 

 can obtain no account of their origin. The Berkshire breed from 

 England has been introduced into the county ; and will extend itself 

 as soon as its merits are properly appreciated. It is the best hog 

 that we have among us ; and when used as a cross with some of our 

 small boned breed, such as the Byfield or the China, or the Mocho, 

 the progeny is highly approved. In a cross with the grass breed, 

 so common in New York, the produce is very fine. Beautiful sam- 

 ples of this cross have been produced on one of the best managed 

 farms in Massachusetts, in Lexington, near Boston. The average 

 size, at eleven and twelve months old, has been .300 to 350 lbs.; and 

 with extraordinary care and feed they have been made to exceed 400 

 lbs. at ten months old. This early ripeness, in all animals designed 

 for the butcher, is of great importance. 



On the dairy farms, the raising of pork is extensively pursued, ex- 

 cepting where the whey itself is used for the cows. The expediency 

 of using the whey for the cows or in preferetice of keeping swine, 

 is a vexed question among the farmers, which I have no means of de- 

 termining. One hog is usually kept to four cows. A shoat, weigh- 

 ing seventy pounds in the spring, kept upon the slops of the dairy 

 and pasturage, and some meal or potatoes or both, may be expected, 

 in the fall, to weigh 230 lbs.; and the fartners in general consider more 

 than one hundred pounds of this produce as in justice to be credi- 

 ted to the four cows. This, 1 believe, is in most Ccises an under- 

 esiiniate. No arti le can be gi. en to swiae, so conducive to thrift 

 as milk, or the slops ol the dairy. 



One of the Lest establishments for fatting suine I found in Great 



