THE HOG. 
203 
TIIE DOMESTIC IlOG: 
TO BREED, FEED, CUT UP, AND CURE. 
VARIETIES OP THE IlOG. — There exist only three actual varieties of 
the domestic hog — the Berkshire, Chinese, and Highland, or Irish; all 
other breeds, described as separate varieties, are only offshoots from one 
or the other of these three main stocks. 
Tile True Berkshire Pig is black, or black and white, short-legged, full 
and round in the loins, rather fine in the hair, the ears small and erect, 
and the snout not lengthy. This description of animal forms a striking 
contrast with the long-sided, convex-backed, lob-eared, long-legged, and 
shambling brute which was common in many parts of Great Britain, 
and almost universal in Ireland, thirty or forty years ago, and which 
still, without any improvement in form, is the general description of the 
pig throughout France and most of Germany. 
In giving preference, however, to the Berkshire breed, it is not to be 
understood that we consider them handsome in a positive sense, or per- 
fect models of good breeding and propriety in their habits and manners. 
No dumpy animal, with its belly near the ground, with four short 
crutches for legs, hair by no means silky, a little curled tail, and small, 
sunk eyes, peering into every hole and corner and never looking upward 
to the glorious firmament, can be called an absolute beauty ; but, com- 
pared with other races of swine, the Berkshire are handsome ; and, as 
to their habits and manners, they have no little merit; for, considering 
the natural dispositions of the hog family, and the contemptuous man- 
ner in which they are spoken of and treated everywhere (except in cer- 
tain parts of Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland, where pigs are 
privileged orders, and experience such respect as to be permitted, and 
even invited, to occupy the same room with their masters, by day and 
night, in consideration of their paying the house-rent, and supplying the 
means of purchasing salt, candles, and soap), the Berkshire race have 
unquestionable merit, and appear to respect the decencies of life. Their 
females have never been known to commit infanticide, as some other 
domesticated tribes of swine undoubtedly do, from what we consider a 
depraved taste; nor have either sex of this tribe been ever justly ac- 
cused, or even suspected, of that cannibal propensity which has led in- 
dividuals of certain other tribes of the great hog family to seize upon 
the tender babe in the cradle and devour it, “marrow, bones, and all!” 
They (the Berkshires) are so docile and gentle that a little boy or girl 
may drive them to and from the pasture-field or the common without 
having their authority disputed ; and, when ranging about in the happy 
consciousness of liberty, though they may sometimes poke their noses 
where their interference is not desired, they do not perpetrate half the 
mischief to the turf which other classes of swine are prone to commit. 
They seem disposed to content themselves with the grass on the surface 
of the soil, without uprooting it in search of delicacies that may lie 
