LXXV.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
207 
LETTEK LXXV. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
The natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the 
reason is plain — because it is neither profitable nor convenient 
to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of its time : 
liowever, my neighbour, a man of substance, who had no 
occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety, kept a 
half-bred Bantam sow, who was as thick as she was long, 
and whose belly SM'ept on the ground, till she was advanced to 
her seventeenth year, at which period she showed some tokens 
of age by the decay of her teeth and the decline of her 
fertility. 
For about ten years this prolific mother produced two litters 
in the year of about ten at a time, and once above tw^enty at a 
litter ; but as there were near double the number of pigs to 
that of teats, many died. Erom long experience in the world 
this female was grown very sagacious and artful ; — ^wdien she 
found occasion to converse with a boar she used to open all 
the intervening gates, and march, by herself, up to a distant 
farm w^here one w^as kept ; and when her purpose was served 
would return by the same means. At the age of about fifteen 
her litters began to be reduced to four or five; and such a 
litter she exhibited when in her fatting~pen. She proved, when 
fat, good bacon, juicy, and tender; the rind, or sward, was 
remarkably thin. At a moderate computation she was allowed 
to have been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs : a pro- 
digious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was 
killed in spring 1775. 
