SWINB. 



399 



^SSex. Coburti on swine has the following to say regarding this 

 breed: "The Essex breed of swine is comparatively unknown among the 

 farmers of the Mississippi Valley, and we have no knowledge of their 

 being raised in any considerable numbers for pork. Still in some local- 

 ities, they are bred in a limited way (more, perhaps in Kentucky, than 

 elsewhere) and we have never encountered a person who has once tried 

 them, who did not place a high estimate on their value as a small breed, 

 and especially on the boars to use for crossing on sows of larger breeds. 



They seem to be essentially the same as SufEolks, except in their 

 black color, and less liability to skin diseases, which would in a 



PRIZE ESSEX BOAR. 



majority of cases make them the favorites over their white com- 

 petitors. 



We think that there is small probability of the Essex swine, as now 

 bred, ever becoming the prevailing breed, from the fact that they are 

 a smaller class of hogs than most farmers care to raise, or packers to 

 buy and handle, and we deem it improbable that the next fifty or hun- 

 dred 5'ears will witness the raising of smaller swine, generally, than the 

 Berkshires, and it is more than likely that in the future, the happy 

 medium will be an animal in size between the best modelled small- 

 boned Berkshire and the coarser Poland-Chinas of the present time. ' ' 



