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Vol XLI. No. 1683. 
NEW YORK, APRIL 29, 1882. 
PEIOE FIVE CENTS, 
$2.00 PEH YEAB, 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1882, by th-a Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.) 
black ou the belly and leg9. The darker 
shades of red are most desirable. In disposi¬ 
tion they are remarkably mild and gentle, 
and so docile they are easily confined. They 
are kind and careful mothers, and wonderfully 
prolific. Their ability to digest and assimi¬ 
late food is remarkable. They are exceedingly 
hardy. That they are the strongest bred, aud 
one of the most valuable breeds of hogs in all 
other respects, aud especially for hams and 
bacon, is conceded by all who are acquainted 
with them. The proofs of the descent of these 
hogs from the early importations from Berk¬ 
shire, England, are now beyond dispute, owing 
to similarities in color and form, and the re¬ 
cords of old histories. 
up by crossing with Chester Whites, while 
perhaps the majority which have been crossed 
with the more modern Berkshires, have smaller 
ears, more or less erect, with rounder and 
more compact bodies, similar to the Black 
Berkshires. These hogs retain the capacity 
for rapid growth and superior quality of flesh 
and other excellencies which the original hogs 
the Convention and agreed upon were as fol¬ 
lows:—“A good specimen of a Jersey Red 
should be red in color, with a snout of mode¬ 
rate length; large lopped ears; small head in 
proportion to the size and length of the body. 
They should be long in the body, standing 
high and rangy on their legs. Bone coar se, 
hairy tail and brush and hair coarse, inclining 
to bristles on the back. They are valuable on 
account of their size and strong constitutions 
and capacity for growth. They are not sub¬ 
ject to mange.” I also stated at this time that 
the reds are probably descended from the old 
importations of Berkshires, which has never 
been disputed; and also that they are much 
coarser than the improved swine of this 
breed. 
DUROC 
is a fancy name given to red hogs which have 
been bred in Saratoga Co., N. Y., for fifty- 
nine years. A Mr. Kelsey, of Florida, Mont¬ 
gomery Co., N. Y., was the owner of the fa¬ 
mous horse Duroc. In the year 1S23 Isaac 
Frink, Esq., a leading farmer in the town of 
Milton, Saratoga Co., N. Y., went to Mr. Kel¬ 
sey’s to see this horse, and there saw a red sow 
with a litter of pigs, which Mr. Kelsey said 
he had imported from England. Mr. Frink 
purchased a boar pig and took.it to his home 
and called it Duroc, in honor of the horse he 
had been to see. This hog was remarkable for 
his great length of body, and was extensively 
crossed upon the native hogs of Saratoga 
County, where the descendants are still bred. 
The crosses of these Duroc hogs have been al¬ 
most innumerable, but, nevertheless, like the 
kindred family, the Jersey Reds, they have 
wonderfully maintained the old Berkshire 
characteristics. About 52 years ago William 
Ensign, who lived 25 miles distant from Mr. 
Frink, obtained a pair of red hogs from Con¬ 
necticut, where I understand, they are still 
bred and known as Red Berkshires which pair 
<l\)£ 
JERSEY REDS, DUROCS AND RED 
BERKSHIRES. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS, 
RED BERKSHIRE. 
A few years ago several gentlemen engaged 
in breeding these hogs, agreed to accept the 
name of Red Berkshire as the exclusive name 
for their hogs, as they were convinced this 
was the blood from which their stock had de 
scended and was the true name. They also 
fixed a standard of characteristics which coin¬ 
cided with the original form and peculiar fea¬ 
tures of the breed; which form and features 
were possessed by the best types of their hogs. 
This stai dard is now admitted to be a proof 
of purity of blood, and will be the means of 
establishing a uniformity in the breed which 
wili be a guide not only to the public, but to 
breeders, and serve to weed out cross-bred 
hogs which may have but little similarity 
other than the color. I am not aware that the 
breeders of Jersey Reds have established any 
standard of characteristics, but the sooner 
they do the sooner they will get rid of the 
pretensions of individuals that they possess 
the only pure-bred stock. The following is 
the riaudard alluded to above for Red Berk¬ 
shire!: 
The body should be long and deep—not 
round, but broad on the back and holding the 
width well out lo the hips aud hams. The 
head should be small eonijwred with the body, 
with the cheek broad and full, neck short and 
thick; face slightly curved, with the nose 
rather longer than in English breeds ; ears 
lopped and rather large; medium in bone; 
legs medium in length, well set under the 
There are three families of red hogs in 
America, viz.—Jersey Red, Duroc and Red 
Berkshire. Since I wrote the report on the 
first two for the National Swine Breeders’ 
Convention, held at Indianapolis, Indiana, in 
the Autumn of 1872, I have not been able to 
get any additional information regarding the 
origin of the 
JERSEY reds, 
and I can only give in this article the state¬ 
ments made at that time, which have not been 
disputed. Some breeders, however, latterly, 
make claims for purity of blood and for spe¬ 
cial features for the hogs of their breeding, 
which do not correspond with the general 
characteristics of the red hogs of New Jersey. 
Previous to the National Swine Breeders’ Con¬ 
vention, they were not advertised as a distinct 
breed. They had been crossed with Berkshires, 
Chester Whites, and other breeds, which made 
them considerably mixed in color, ranging 
from red to red-and-white and sandy, with the 
variety in characteristics which such crosses 
would make Here aud there in the State, 
ohiefly in Burlington Co., farmers in a neigh¬ 
borhood and individuals had kept the hogs of 
their fathers as pure as they could, and so the 
blood bad descended from one generation to 
another, with the characteristic of red color 
more marked than any other except size. The 
latter had been maintained to such a degree in 
the case of these breeders, that the swine had 
become a breed of mammoth proportions, and 
instances a re on record of forty grown hogs av¬ 
eraging 703 pounds, 
and fifty pigs aver¬ 
aging 43G pounds. 
Previous to the 
National Swine 
Breeders’ Conven¬ 
tion, I endeavored 
to find out from cit¬ 
izens of New Jersey 
the origin of their 
red hogs, but was 
unable to do so. Mr. 
D. M.Brown, Wind- 
sor, N. J., said he 
had known of them 
as long as he could 
remember — nearly 
fifty years—but he 
could not find any 
one who could tell 
where they came 
from. David Pet- , _— 
titt, Salem, N. J. t ; 
wrote me that he r.£v-- 
recollected the red 
hogs for thirty 
years, but had never 
heard of their ori- 
More than twenty . V s ? ^ 
years ago I saw in 
Virginia and Mary¬ 
land hogs similar to 
those of New Jer¬ 
sey, and they had 
been for many years 
a common breed in 
that section of the country. 
In answer to advertisements in several agri¬ 
cultural papers—the Rural among others— 
asking for information regarding the origin 
of Jersey Red hogs, 1 did not receive any re¬ 
plies, nor has any one up to this time, that I 
am aware of, given the desired information. 
The characteristics reported at this time to 
Red Berkshire, Sow, Queen of Saratoga” 
Our friend and correspondent, Col. F. D. 
Curtis, has procured stock of pure Red Berk¬ 
shire blood, which he is now breeding, and 
has also crossed them upon the old Saratoga 
County stock. The sow, “ Queen of Saratoga” 
in the accompanying illustration, is one of 
this family. The Durocs, or Red Berkshire?, 
are noted for their length of body, deep sides 
and large, full hams. They possess to the full 
est extent the characteristic of the old Berk¬ 
shires, which made them famous, the large 
proportion of lean meat mingled with the 
fat. It is this peculiar feature which makes 
them excellent bacon hogs, and the producers 
of superior bums. They are a very vigorous 
breed, strong and growthy, and also exceed¬ 
ingly docile and prolific. They are in great 
demand in the West, as they rival the Poland 
Chinas, with some superior merits. 
mm menu i>ut iu your 
editorial remarks 
MJwTi upon what I had to 
vKJrj say, I am called up- 
y iV on to show what the 
Cheshires can do as 
W to growth, etc., and 
v j® you now say the 
r flu statement to which 
yV 1 objected applied to 
the “quality uf their 
(Berkshire)'„meat .’’ 
“ Had you made that 
~ ~ qualification in the 
first place, I should 
not have questioned 
the assertion, for I 
cannot personally 
say but it may be 
• true. The statement 
was made without 
m *2zSt=^ “ any qualification, 
—— and as thus made I 
- personally knew it 
- 7 . to be incorrect. 
It is suggested by 
you that the cross I 
used was not of the 
large, thrifty kind. 
I reply, the Commu¬ 
nity had the largest Berkshires I ever saw. 
You say: *‘ We have often seen specimens of 
this breed (Berkshire) that would dress from 
400 to 600 pounds at 16 to 20 months of age;” 
and ask what my Cheshires will weigh. One 
pig from a litter was thought, when young, 
not quite fit for shipping; it was, therefore^ 
castrated, then fattened and killed when ex- 
■'WtAKr 
RED BERKSHIRE SOW “ QUEEN OF SARATOGA— From a Photograph—Fig. 129 
of pigs were also crossed upon the hogs of the body and wide apart; cut up high in the flank; 
vicinity. The offspring of these red hogs ex- hams broad, full, and well down to the hock; 
tended to the neighboring counties, and made hair medium in fineness and thickness, usually 
for themselves a high reputation. There has straight, sometimes wavy and inclining to 
been no fixed type for a Duroc other than red, bristles on the top of the shoulders; tail hairy 
as different breeders followed their own taste and heavy ; color red, ranging from dark 
and convenience in crossing. As a result, some glossy cherry to light yellowish red, with 
had lopped ears, an original mark, and kept brownish hairs and occasionally flecks of 
