BOOK VII. IX. 3-7 



the udder, they may feed on stubble and the fruits 

 also which fall from leguminous plants. This is the 4 

 practice in out-of-the-way regions where raising 

 stock is the only thing which pays ; for in districts 

 near towns the sucking pig must be turned into 

 money, for then its mother is saved trouble by not 

 having to rear it and will more quickly conceive and 

 produce another offspring, and so bear twice in the 

 same year. The males are castrated, so that they 

 may be enabled to grow fat, either at six months, when 

 they first begin to cover the sows, or else at three or 

 four years of age, when they have been often used for 

 breeding. An operation is also performed with the 5 

 knife on the wombs of the females to make them 

 suppurate and close up as a result of scarring over, 

 so that they cannot breed. I do not know the reason 

 for doing this, unless it is lack of food ; for where 

 there is abundance of fodder, it always pays to rear 

 stock. 



Moreover, pigs can make shift in any sort of 6 

 country wherever situated. For they find suitable 

 pasture both in the mountains and in the plains, 

 though it is better on marshy ground than on dry. 

 The most convenient feeding-grounds are woods 

 covered with oaks, cork-trees, beeches, Turkey oaks, 

 holm-oaks, wild olive trees, terebinth-trees,'* hazels, 

 wild fruit-trees like the whitethorn, carob-trees, 

 junipers, nettle-trees, vine-tendrils, cornel-trees, 

 strawberry-trees, plum-trees, Christ's thorn, and 

 wild pear-trees. For these ripen at different times and 

 provide plenty of food for the herd almost all the 

 year round. But where there is a lack of trees, we 7 

 shall have recourse to fodder which grows near the 

 ground and prefer muddy to dry ground, so that the 



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