CHAPTER XXI 
THE RAZORBACK 
WE have now launched three of the four prin- 
cipal industries of our factory farm. The fourth 
is perhaps the most important of all, if a single 
member of a group of mutually dependent indus- 
tries can have this distinction. There is no ques- 
tion that the farmer’s best friend is the hog. 
He will do more for him and ask less of him than 
any other animal. All he asks is to be born. 
That is enough for this non-ruminant quadruped, 
who can find his living in the earth, the roadside 
ditch, or the forest, and who, out of a supply of 
grass, roots, or mast, can furnish ham and bacon 
to the king’s taste and the poor man’s mainte- 
nance. The half-wild razorback, with never a 
clutch of corn to his back, gives abundant food 
to the mountaineer over whose forest he ranges. 
The cropped or slit ear is the only evidence of 
human care or human ownership. He lives the 
life of a wild beast, and in the autumn he dies 
the death of a wild beast; while his flesh, made 
rich with juices of acorns, beechnuts, and other 
sweet masts, nourishes a man whose only exercise 
of ownership is slaughter. The hog that can 
make his own living, run like a deer, and drink 
126 
ee A Pen ee on 
2 a 
Se ee Rete ee ee 
Ae Oak 
o_o 
