Rearing and Fattening of Pigs. 



15 



adopted the plan of giving at least a portion of wheat to the 

 pigs with their hitherto staple food — maize. The very serious 

 shortage of maize from the 1901 harvest has been tided over 

 with comparative ease by the use of wheat, and so successful 

 has the mixture of maize and wheat proved for pig feeding, 

 that probably many American hog-raisers will continue the 

 plan of mixing the food for their pigs, since the quality of 

 meat is improved, and the losses from broken legs in transit on 

 the cars to the large centres, such as Chicago, are considerably 

 less. Indeed, it is now frankly admitted by pig-feeders in 

 America that the low price of wheat and the scarcity of maize 

 have proved to them a great blessing in disguise. One other 

 step they will have to take ere their pork and bacon takes a high 

 place on the English market : they will have to alter the form 

 and quality of their pigs. Fashion and the desire to produce a 

 very fat pig, or, in other words, a prize-winning and a lard-pig, 

 have together simply ruined the majority of the pigs on the 

 American Continent for producing a side of high-class bacon 

 such as would realise the highest price on the English markets. 

 The change is sure to come, and one of the levers will be the 

 demand on the part of American consumers for such bacon as 

 they can eat, since the well-to-do and middle-classes have become 

 as fond of mild-cured bacon and hams as have the same and 

 even lower classes in this country. The hog-raisers on the other 

 side will very readily alter their system ^is soon as it becomes 

 evident that there is profit in it. Of course, a few of the 

 monied men and fanciers may still persist in breeding and 

 exhibiting the lard-hog, and there may still be found judges 

 who are interested in, and who will continue to award the prizes 

 to, the obese animals, whose only excuse for their existence is 

 that they can win prizes and honours for their millionaire 

 owners. But most probably we are about to see a great change 

 in the type and character of the fat hog generally produced in 

 the States. Experiments have been carried out which clearly 

 prove that the so-called bacon-hog, i.e., the Large White York- 

 shire hog, will not only produce an equal, but a greater quantity 

 of live weight increase on a given quantity of food ; and, further, 

 that the proportion of dead to live weight is greater than with 

 the lard-hog similarly fed. Then, as to the value of the meat 



