20 THE STATE AS FARMER 



dainty in his eating as one would like, and 

 the Jews had good taste in tabooing him in 

 the older and the Eastern days. No animal 

 answers more perfectly to a carefully chosen 

 diet; but can it be seriously argued yet 

 that all the pigs which reach the age of curing 

 have been fed upon those rations which in- 

 duce a fine flavour and firmness of the flesh ? 

 How can the buyer tell with certainty from 

 the outside what the diet has been ? I do 

 not desire to get into an altercation with 

 anyone, and will admit that here and there 

 such an expert might be found. But is 

 not he just the man who would want to turn 

 that special vision of his into hard cash ? 

 It is much simpler to organise the proper 

 feeding of our pigs ourselves than to put into 

 the lottery for a chance prize. This useful 

 animal should be on every farm, even on the 

 fruit orchards, though we cannot feed him 

 on peaches yet. For he may vie with the 

 poultry in ' using up ' all sorts of food and 

 rough vegetable and other produce to a certain 

 point. But at that point the scientific feeding 

 must begin, either on the farm or, better still in 

 my opinion, at the bacon factory itself. For 



