VOL. LII. No. 2279. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 30, 1893. 
PRICE, THREE CENTS* 
$1.00 PER YEAR. 
THE CHESHIRE HOG. 
NO BLACK MARKS ON IT. 
Photographing a Hog. —Can a satisfactory photo¬ 
graph be taken of a hog? A horse or cow can be led 
out and put in position to present the best appearance, 
and a photograph can be taken that will be just as 
satisfactory as a true portrait. At the request of a 
representative of Tnii R. N.-Y. I had a photograph 
taken of a Cheshire sow, Latona, that won the sweep- 
stakes at the State Fair in 1891 (see Fig. 213.) Two 
sows were led out together so that they would be more 
quiet, as the two were in the pen together. What was 
wanted was to catch her when she held up her head 
and stood straight and square, but when she did so, 
as she occasionally did, the operator was not in a 
position, and by the time he was, the sow was not. 
At length the operator declared he had secured a per¬ 
fect view ; but look at it! A photograph of the sow in 
front was what was wanted. In order to have her 
stand up straight, a bystander held out something 
eatable on the end of a 6tick. She held up her head, 
indeed, but it was turned towards the operator, and 
the result was a picture of a hog partly turned around 
with her back humped up and out 
of a good position in every way. 
No more photographs of hogs for 
me ! 
Quick Growth of the Cheshire. 
—I have written occasionally that 
the best weights I could vouch for 
were 410 pounds for a pig eight 
months and 14 days old, and an 
average of 406 pounds on a litter 
of seven butchered when exactly 
nine months and one day old. I 
find most Western people doubt 
the truth of the statement. Some 
question it, asking how it could 
be. The weights given were abso¬ 
lutely correct. The 410-pound pig 
was from a litter the other pigs of 
which were sold for breeding pur¬ 
poses. That pig was considered 
a little too coarse for shipping, so 
he was castrated and fattened, 
lie was fed mostly on skim-milk 
and corn meal, with weeds, etc., 
occasionally to give him a good 
appetite. The litter of seven were 
fed in a like manner. I have 
never claimed that all Cheshires would make any 
such weights. I gave these weights only as the best 
I knew of. I have often heard of Cheshires in this 
section, either full-blood or grades, which weighed 
400 or over at nine months, but I do not know the 
particulars of either age or weight. One Western 
correspondent had no hesitation in stating plain>y 
that he doubted the truth of the statements, and 
asked for the names of those who had bought of me, 
and he wrote them to learn if Cheshires would make 
such weights as I asserted. Naturally some said they 
would, while others Sdid they would not. At length 
he sent his foreman East to investigate, with orders to 
buy the best if he found the representations made in 
regard to them correct. The foreman made his investi¬ 
gation, and told me he was satisfied the statements in 
regard to weights were trustworthy. Such growth 
would be obtained only occasionally, and though such 
carcasses would command the highest prices, they 
would hardly be desirable for home use. The pig 
that dressed 416 pounds had in addition to that weight 
40 pounds of lard on the inwards. 
Lean Meat. —While the above is strictly true, I 
commend the Cheshire on account of his large propor¬ 
tion of lean meat as compared with the fat. When 
not too highly fed, a good Cheshire will grow rapidly, 
and his growth will be almost wholly of muscle, with 
but a small proportion of fat. This makes these hogs 
the best in the world for home and market use. The 
markets cry out for lean meat. To energize a live 
Yankee, lean meat, not fat, is absolutely needed. I 
once heard from one of my neighbors that “he did not 
like a fuli-blood Cheshire, as it had too much lean 
meat.” A customer from Vermont several years ago 
wrote me that his neighbors liked the Cheshire very 
much. They found only one fault, Some of them 
complained that they had too much lean meat. Such 
criticism I deem the highest praise. The fact is one 
can get plenty of fat from a Cheshire by high or long 
feeding. He will get the lean any way. The fat can 
be put on top of it if desired. While at the State 
Fair, in 1891, I met a man from the West who was ex¬ 
hibiting the most beautiful Poland Chinas I had ever 
seen. He told me his nearest neighbors had bought 
some Cheshires, and that he had seen some of them 
after they had been butchered. Said he : “ It was the 
finest meat I ever saw, and when I get home I am 
going to secure some Cheshires for my own use. I 
breed Poland Chinas for the money there is in them.” 
'■f'S/- 
•$&$!*** * 
The Lean-Meat Breed. A Typical Cheshire Sow. Fig. 
Quality of the Flesh. — I wonder if The Rural 
readers know that there is a vast difference in the 
quality of the flesh of the different breeds. Some 
meat is of fine, firm grain, and other kinds are of a 
coarse, flabby texture. If the readers do not know 
this, I wish they would use a cut from a Cheshire 
and a Chester White or Poland China at the same time. 
If one would test them together, he would see at once 
the difference. Animals are of different cellular 
structure. It is the fineness of this structure that in 
a large measure gives fine quality to the flesh. The 
Cheshire is a fine, compactly-built hog. This fineness 
runs all through the animal. He has fine bone, fine 
hair, likewise fine, firm texture of flesh, both fat and 
lean. In the matter of good quality and the amount 
of lean meat, no other breed that I know of can equal 
a Cheshire. In this animals of this sort stand pre¬ 
eminent. 
Why the Difference. —There is always a reason 
for things, so there must be a reason why the flesh of 
a Cheshire is superior to that of other breeds, and 
why there is a greater proportion of lean to fat. I 
think the explanation is as follows : One of the com¬ 
ponent parts of the original Cheshire was the Large 
English Yorkshire. Hogs of this breed have been 
bred for centuries for bacon purposes—to produce 
lean instead of fat. The principal other factors were 
sows bred for a long t ! me in the dairy regions of New 
York. There is nothing better to develop muscle 
than skim-milk. The Cheshire has been developed in 
a dairy section of the State. The breeders who have 
had most to do with the breed, have been careful, 
when they did not have milk, to give them a nitro¬ 
genous diet. Darwin has shown how the environ¬ 
ment, in other words, the accumulation of the influ¬ 
ences of the surroundings through many generations, 
will control the animal when placed in different con¬ 
ditions. This, I think, will explain why, for instance, 
if a Cheshire and a Poland China be fed in the same 
pen, the Cheshire, when butchered, will have a larger 
proportion of lean than the other. One from his sur¬ 
roundings, in other words, the food of his ancestors, 
has inherited a tendency to produce lean meat; while 
the other has inherited from his corn-fed ancestors a 
tendency to produce fat. To me there is no mystery 
in the matter. I know men of scientific acquirements 
tell us that the particular hog will be the result sim¬ 
ply of what he is fed, which, of course, is true in a 
certain sense; but that it is not all the truth a little 
reflection will show. Two men 
may eat at the same table all theit 
lives and yet one be very fleshy 
and the other very thin. 
Is the Cheshire Prolific ?— I 
usually expect about 10 pigs to 
a litter. If a sow does not farrow 
9 or 10, she does not come up to 
expectations. Occasionally a sow 
will not do as well as that; but, 
on the other hand, it is not un¬ 
common for a Cheshire sow to 
produce 14 or 10 at a birth ; 9 or 
10 pigs, however, are all a sow can 
properly raise, and they must be 
well fed for so many to grow prop¬ 
erly. One good pig is worth more 
than two poor ones. At the 1891 
Fair I showed three sows over one 
year old, the two shown in the 
photograph and another. After 
the fair all had pigs. One far¬ 
rowed 9, another 10, and the other 
11. To those who know how many 
pigs show sows usually have, 
these figures will be entirely 
satisfactory. 
A Thoroughbred Hog. —The Cheshire is not as old 
a breed as the Berkshire, yet it has been so carefully 
bred that it will reproduce it ; kind as well as any other 
sort. I think its having been developed in a dairy 
section has something to do with this. I deem milk 
the best food in the world for a hog. It produces not 
only symmetrical development, but likewise constitu¬ 
tional vigor. The Cheshire passes on his abounding 
vigor to his offspring. Crossed with any other breed, 
the offspring will resemble the Cheshire much more 
than the other parent. Breed the purest bred Berk¬ 
shire or Poland China to a Cheshire, and every pig 
will be white; not one black hair could be found on a 
thousand of such progeny. In the few instances in 
which I have heard of Cheshire sows being bred to a 
black boar, the rule has also held. Every pig was 
white. If one does not want white hogs, he must use 
no Cheshire blood. C. w. da vis. 
R. N.-Y.—This matter of color in hogs seems to be 
largely determined by climate or individual prefer¬ 
ence. At the South there are few pure white hogs. 
Many farmers there argue that the blacks stand the 
sun better than the whites, just as the negroes are 
best for field work in that hot climate. We think, too, 
that as we go north, the proportion of white hogs 
will be found to increase. 
I I \ % 
j ■ 
213. 
