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portions^of Europe, perhaps for a century or more past, consid¬ 
erable advances had been made in the improvement of their do¬ 
mestic swine, as a few years after the revolutionary war, importa¬ 
tions of improved animals of the kind were introduced into our 
country, and among them we have accounts that General Washing¬ 
ton had some of them which were.sent over as a present to him at 
Mount Vernon, from England. Early in the present century, also, 
the East India merchants of Massachusetts and New York imported 
some fine specimens from China and India, which were afterward 
considerably crossed on the common stocks of our eastern states, 
and much improved them both in the qualities of their flesh and 
domestic habits. Still, until within the last fifty, or even fort}? 
years, the mass of our farmers throughout the country, and more 
particularly in the western states, bred and reared swine of ordi¬ 
nary character, answering, to be sure, the main requirements of 
consumable flesh, but inferior in its high condition to that now 
found in our markets, either for domestic consumption or exporta¬ 
tion. 
The various foreign breeds to which we are indebted for our 
present swine improvement are too numerous to mention, and their 
history in detail, though quite interesting, is too long to narrate, 
but the agricultural literature of our several states will fully inform 
all inquirers of their various progress and present status. As an 
evidence of the present interest in their production and improve¬ 
ment, an association of swine-breeders has recently been formed, 
whose headquarters are at Springfield, Ill. They have issued a 
swine herd-book for the Berkshire breed, after the style of the vari¬ 
ous cattle herd-books, in which their genealogy and high excellences 
aie chronicled. Not that we would exalt this particular breed 
above others, perhaps equally meritorious, but to signalize the en¬ 
terprise of our farmers, and the magnitude of the pork and lard- 
producing interest of our country, amounting to hundreds of mil¬ 
lions of dollars annually. The swine of the United States now 
consume a great share of the product of the almost illimitable cora 
fields of our western and upper southern states, thus converting a 
great portion of that valuable grain into a portable commodity, 
which, without them, would be either a drug, or an almost incon¬ 
vertible staple-of their agriculture. We may, in view of the pro¬ 
gress we have made in swine cultivation and improvement, place 
the United States superior to that of any other country in the world. 
