THE RAZORBACK 127 
out of a jug, has done more for the pioneer and 
the backwoodsman than any other animal. 
Take this semi-wild beast away from his wild 
haunts, give him food and care, and he will 
double his gifts. Adda hundred generations of 
careful selection, until his form is so changed 
that it is beyond recognition, and again the prod- 
uct will be doubled. The spirit of swine is not 
changed by civilization or good breeding; such 
as it was on that day when the herd “ran down 
a steep place and was drowned in the sea,” such 
it is to-day. A fixed determination to have its 
own way dominated the creature then, and a 
pig-headed desire to be the greatest food-produc- 
ing machine in the world is its ruling passion 
now. That the hog has succeeded in this is beyond 
question ; for no other food animal can increase 
its own weight one hundred and fifty fold in the 
first eight months of its life. 
___ All over the world there is a growing fondness 
i _ for swine flesh, and the ever increasing supply 
doesn’t outrun the demand. Since the disper- 
sion of the tribes of Israel there has been no 
a persistent effort to depopularize this wonderful 
_ foodmaker. Pig has more often been the food 
of the poor than of the rich, but now rich and 
poor alike do it honor. Old Ben Jonson said : — 
« Now pig is meat, and a meat that is nourish- 
| 4 ing and may be desired, and consequently eaten: 
| ‘a it may be eaten; yea, very exceedingly well 
g eaten,” 
A 
