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REPORT ON SWINE. 



The display of SAvine at the Norfolk Agricultural Fair, was the 

 finest ever seen in Massachusetts. 



The attention of farmers in Norfolk County seems to have been 

 especially directed to the subject of swine. The Suffolk breed in 

 particular, is regarded with much enthusiasm. 



The first annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Agri- 

 culture of Massachusetts, 1854, says, page 92, " We see that the 

 Suffolk, or rather a cross of the Suffolk with some other breed, 

 holds the highest place in public estimation in all parts of the 

 State." 



It is claimed and coincides Avith the views of your Committee, 

 that in point of economy, this breed of hogs is much easier kept, 

 and take on fat faster at less expense, than any other known. 

 There is much less waste in cutting up for the barrel ; the pork is 

 sweeter, and more dehcate. They are docile, thrifty, and mature 

 early, weighing at twelve to eighteen months, two hundred to four 

 hundred and fifty pounds, and occasionally as high as five hundred. 

 The extent to which these weighty considerations have a bearing 

 upon the Massachusetts farmers, cannot be better conveyed than 

 by instancing the fact that the Committee saw a few days since, at 

 the farm of Dr. Morton in West Needham, a pair of pure Suffolks, 

 imported from the yard of Prince Albert for the sole purpose of 

 getting a different strain of blood into his herd of Suffolks, which 

 have already carried more prizes from the Norfolk County Show 

 than any others in it, and from which a boar and a sow each took 

 your Society's first premium at their last exhibition. {^See cut.') 



Mr. B. V. French, of Braintree, whose efforts for the promo- 

 tion of agriculture are well known, exhibited an imported boar of 

 superior merit. 



Mr. Franklin King, of Dorchester, exhibited an imported Essex 

 boar, fifteen months old, which the Committee considered worthy 

 of high consideration. 



Dr. W. T. G. Morton, of Needham, filled six pens with pure 

 Suffolks from his herd, which elicited much attention, and were a 

 great credit to the Society as well as the owner ; great care and 

 expense having been bestowed in importing and breeding from the 



