84 SOUTHERN PORK PRODUCTION 



sion of the animal should be neither active and masculine, 

 nor should it be passive and effeminate, but rather inex- 

 pressive and negative, with a tendency toward the 

 passive and lymphatic, characteristic of an unsexed 

 animal. A description of an ideal market or fat hog is 

 given later. Proper conformation is especially important. 



Early pork types. — The attainment of great weights 

 seems to have been the chief aim of our earlier producers 

 of pork. This idea was especially fostered in the show 

 ring. Today the market discriminates against the large 

 and excessively fat hog, yet the demand on the part of 

 the average fair visitor is still to see the largest hog. The 

 attainment of these great weights was a little more ex- 

 cusable in the former days of cheap feeds than now, but 

 with the market demands as they are, and with the 

 demand for meats on the farm from small hogs, size is no 

 longer to be given such consideration in the show ring, 

 and the standards will be placed more along utilitarian 

 lines. 



The ideal market hog. — The ideal porker fulfills in 

 every detail the requirements of the purpose for which it 

 is to be used in so far as such is possible. In a study of 

 the ideal fat hog we look at his value as an animal 

 designed for use as food, and do not take into account the 

 value of the animal as a breeder, or whether or not the 

 meat he carries was produced at a profit or loss. It is 

 therefore the butcher and consumer of pork that set the 

 standards of the ideal fat hog, but these standards must 

 not be contrary to economical feeding and breeding. 

 What the butcher demands is what should concern us. 

 He demands conformation, quality and finish, a high 



