352 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
“THE COMING HOG.” 
BY m: k. young, glen ha yen. 
If anything is characteristic of the public sentiment of the 
American people, it is its proneness to yield to the rage of the 
hour, and then dash off into some other extreme, rut or 
groove, to be given up in its turn to a third furor, no less dis¬ 
tinctive and peculiar. This is not only true on subjects in¬ 
volving feeling or the adjustments of a logical relationship 
merely, but equally true of such as embrace the gravest con¬ 
siderations of physical and organic law. Noi is this peculiar¬ 
ity confined to the more uneasy and impulsive circles of soci¬ 
ety—those of fashion, adventure and commerce. It is found 
in all the industries, including the more staid and considerate 
manifestations of the agricultural mind. 
A more detailed allusion to this is foreign to our purpose, 
but one moro especially connected with our subject is within 
the record of the “ whole hog ” for the last fifty years. The 
China, Neopolitan, Berkshire, Bedford, Woburn, Byfield, Rus¬ 
sia, Grazer, Essex, Suffolk, Chester, Cheshire, Magie (or 
many-named), have each had, or are having their day and 
laudations from their friends and admirers, and the great pork 
public, as the perfect embodiments of swinish achievement. 
In point of fact all these breeds have their special merits as 
connected with locality and purposes of production, modified 
by climate and markets, and in like manner none of them are 
free from demerit. The idea of a given breed of hogs being 
the best both for Maine and Texas, is as preposterous as that 
blubber is the best food for man T both in the tropics and at 
the north pole. A porkish organism, that carries just 
enough of “ vital force” to be the most consistent with growth 
and taking on fat, at Galveston, would be almost as much out 
of place at Portland a> a polar bear would- in the jungles of 
