CHAPTER LI. 



JUDGING THE BACON TYPE OF SWINE. 



The bacon hog is a well-recognized market type and is 

 increasing in importance with the demand for leaner pork, 

 and especially breakfast bacon. The most valued charac- 

 teristic of the bacon type is a long side, that when properly 

 cured produces the choicest grade of bacon. Such bacon 

 as this has alternate layers of lean meat and fat, firm of 

 quality, without the heavy layer of external fat so much 

 a feature of the lard hog. In years past, in southern Eng- 

 land, in the county of Wilts (usually termed Wiltshire), 

 the people produced and fed a class of hogs from which 

 was made the choicest bacon. Gradually the fame of the 

 Wiltshire side and bacon became widespread, so that to-day 

 this name is supposed to be representative of the choicest 

 quality of bacon. This ideal bacon hog is commonly pro- 

 duced in England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark and to a 

 considerable extent, in Canada. Large Yorkshire or Tam- 

 worth hogs or their grades, represent the best bacon type. 

 Animals of their class, when properly fed such foods as 

 barley, peas, oats, skim milk, etc., produce the choicest 

 grades of bacon. Indian corn is not only too fattening, 

 but produces a softer grade of fat than is approved of by 

 the bacon judges. Bacon hogs, raised in the corn belt and 

 fed com as the major part of their rations, after some gen- 

 erations lose much of the more important bacon-producing 

 characteristics, and tend more and more toward the lard 

 type. Hogs of the bacon type are comparatively uncommon 

 in the United States. Farmers of this country have looked 

 to the hog as an important consumer of the great corn crop, 

 and the lard type seems in part to result from this feeding. 



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