610 



Pigs for Pork. 



[Oct., 



the equally senseless fancy for very large and very fat pigs, 

 mainly consisting of potential lard. About forty years since 

 the demand for a change in' the quality of the pork and bacon 

 to make them more suitable to the requirements and fancies of 

 the consumers became so insistent that a few of the more 

 practical breeders of improved pigs endeavoured to produce two 

 distinct types of pigs, the one for the furnishing of fresh pork 

 and the other more suitable for conversion into the mild-cured 

 bacon which was becoming so exceedingly popular amongst all 

 classes of consumers. At that period or a little earlier the 

 improved or pedigree pigs were mainly of the so-called York- 

 shire breed, which again was subdivided into large, medium 

 and small types, the Berkshire and the Small Black. Of these 

 the small white and the small black have disappeared owing 

 to their unsuitability for supplying pork of the kind demanded 

 and for conversion into bacon. INIany other applicants for fame 

 have arisen, of local origin, but greatly improved by selection 

 and in many cases by the judicious infusion of outside blood. 



Until within quite recent years the opinion was prevalent 

 that almost any breed or type of pig was suitable for the fresh 

 pork trade or for the bacon trade, and that it was far more a 

 question of age and degree of fatness of the slaughtered pig 

 than of breed or type. The persistence of the consumer in 

 buying at the highest prices only the particular class of pork 

 and of bacon which he desired for his consumption has had a 

 great educational influence on pig breeders, who have of late 

 paid far more attention to the requirements and even the 

 whims of consumers, with the result that the variations 

 between the fat pig intended for sale as fresh pork and the 

 one intended for bacon curing have become quite defined. 



There are three distinct types, size and degree of fatness ^ 

 of joints of pork in demand in the various parts of the country. 

 These are furnished by the so-called porker and fat pork types 

 of pigs. The type of porker most in demand in London and 

 the south-eastern parts of the country is one of some four or 

 five months old and weighing alive from 80 to 100 lb. The 

 porker more commonly consumed in the South Midland 

 counties weighs alive 140 lb. when some six months old ; and 

 the fat pork pig is more generally demanded by customers in 

 the North Midlands and the " Black country," and weighs 

 from 250 to BOO lb. at twelve to fifteen months old. 



It will be noticed that both climate and the strenuousness 

 of the labour performed by the wage-earning classes appear 



