pigs are produced in a litter, and the Chinese keep only as many as 
the mother can suckle. The boars are castrated at a month old, the 
sows spayed at three months. This is done by professional men 
who castrate both pigs and poultry. Th°y g^t five cents for each pig 
castrated and live on these earnings. ( 
If properly fed the pigs are ready for salie in six months, but 
generally take a year to fatten enough for sale. Some poorly fed ones 
take two years to fetch a good price. A well fed pig weighs two 
piculs and fetches from 14 to 16 dollars a picul. At one time when 
wild pigs were more abundant the Chinese used occasionally to allow 
the sows to run in the woods to be crossed by the wild pig, and 
formerly at Ang mokio I saw a curious looking breed said to have 
been derived in this way. 
Transport and Trade. 
The pigs are largely exported to the mining districts, alive in 
long rattan baskets, which are piled one on the top of the other, on 
carts or on ship board. The opening of the rail from Malacca, and 
the cultivation of tapioca as a catch-crop for rubber a few years ago, 
increased the pig industry there very extensively, as the refuse 
tapioca formed a valuable and large feeding stuff supply and by the 
railway it was possible to do a big trade in pork at the mines. 
One of the curious results of the rapid development of rubber 
cultivation in Singapore has been an extraordinary fall off in the pro- 
duction of food products, fruit, vegetable and poultry, and at least as 
much marked that of pigs. The Chinese have in fact planted up the 
ground occupied formerly by thise produce with rubber, in the wildest 
way. The result has been that pork is being imported largely from 
Bangkok to replace it. This is regrettable for the rise in price of 
food-stuffs is a serious matter, both increasing the cost of living, and 
interfering with the healthy life of those who cannot afford to purchase 
pork, vegetables and fruit, at these high prices. It will be noticed 
that in the feeding of pigs farinaceous food is a necessity and the 
only suitable materials for this produced in the Peninsula are tapioca 
and sago refuse. As these products also are to a consideiable extent 
going down, before the triumphant Hevea, the difficulty of increasing 
the pig-cultivation must increase, and it certainly does not seem to be 
for the benefit of the population that every little scrap of land should 
be covered with rubber trees cultivated by small Chinese owners in 
place of the food-products of the people. We should be able to pro- 
duce our own supply of fowls, ducks, pork and milk oufselves with- 
out depending on imports from other countries. 
Disease. 
Formerly there were serious outbreaks of swine fever causing 
a great mortality not only among the Chinese pigs but also among 
the wild pigs in the forests. On one occasion many years ago the wild 
pigs in Singapore were nearly exterminated by the disease and the 
tigers which live largely on wild pigs all left the island. In Province 
