330 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY . 
ESSEX HOG. 
Read before the State Agricultural Convention, February, 1873. 
BY HON. JOHN JEPPEBS, DARIEN. 
Your invitation to write a paper on the Berkshire hog was duly 
received, and I regret my inability to comply with your request 
from the lack of practical knowledge, having never been a raiser 
of this truly popular breed. Had you called on Hon. B. Richards 
or Jas. Magson, Esq., both of our state, for such a paper, I have 
no doubt from their experience and great success as breeders of 
the Berkshire hog, they could have furnished it to your entire sat¬ 
isfaction and much to the satisfaction of the public. As a breeder 
of swine, I have confined myself for several years to the Poland- 
China and Essex breeds, and as in many respects there exists be¬ 
tween the Berkshires and Essex a resemblance and similarity, per¬ 
haps it may be equally as acceptable to your society and as inter¬ 
esting to receive this paper on the Essex hog as if I had been able 
to comply with your invitation, in preparing this paper. I am 
aware of the fact that but comparatively few will be interested 
that may hear it read or hereafter peruse it. In the Essex or any 
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other breed of swine, nothing can be said of an animating character. 
I can not claim among them a Dexter or a Goldsmith Maid that 
have surprised the sporting world by their great speed. The hog, 
like many other public benefactors, is more admired and appreci¬ 
ated by the masses of the people after his death, than while 
living. 
The Essex hog is an English breed that was procured by cross¬ 
ing the Neapolitan black boar of Italy, on the Essex hog of Eng¬ 
land. The Essex, before this cross, was a large, coarse black and 
white hog. Lord Weston was the first to import the Neapolitan 
hog and make this cross. The success that attended Lord Wes¬ 
ton in crossing these two breeds, was not only highly satisfactory 
to himself, but surprising to those that beheld his stock; but like 
many other breeders, he fell into the great error of breeding in 
and in, fearing that a fresh infusion of blood might lose to him 
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