as large and as hairy as Welsh, Scotch, or
Hereford cows, and there are small breeds small
enough to he carried in a reticule, and these are
the only two distinctions admitted in entries for
prizes at breeding and fat-stock shows. But
there are also black pigs and white pigs, which
ought not to be classed together, for the simple
reason that in one part of the country a black,
and in another a white, is almost unsaleable at
its pork value; it would seem that a judge
accustomed to the one cannot, without a pang,
give a prize to the other colour.

The large white Yorkshire pig is a wonderful
animal where the price of food is the question.
Gigantic specimens are to be found, perfect
in symmetry and quality; but extra size takes
extra time to grow. The northern counties
favour large hogs; and, therefore, we have
Cumberlands and Lancashires which it is difficult, if
not impossible, to distinguish from the Yorkshire.
Of all these we may say that, considering
their size, they are very apt to fatten, and
a wonderful improvement on the farm-yard
monster of Bewick's time. Travelling south,
in the dairy farms of Berkshire and Wiltshire,
is to be found a large black, or nearly black,
hog, which claims to be an aboriginal production.
The fame of the Berkshire hog goes back
beyond the time of Doomsday. Originally, he
too was a monster in size, and coarseness of bone
and skin. Agricultural reform, and, probably,
an intermixture of foreign blood, has reduced
his dimensions, but left him plenty of size, and
that fine quality which makes Berkshire streaky
bacon so famous, and worthy to be placed
on the same footing as Yorkshire hams. Rivalry
between ham and bacon is, of course, impossible.

The modern Yorkshire hog is white, with now
and then a few black or grey spots. The
modern Berkshire is not so large as a Yorkshire.
He has a white mark on each shoulder, a white
spot on his nose, and four white feet; all the
rest is black: when in perfection, he is covered
with long, soft, silky hair. The most successful
breeder of Berkshires, a Wiltshire man,
and manufacturer of Cheddar cheese, has almost
solved the problem of "how to make a silk
purse out of a sow's ear." The Hampshire
hog is a coarse relative of the Berkshire;
all black. Now between the Berks and
Hants blacks, and the Yorkshire whites,
and the wild boar rusty reds, all the breeds
of England may be accounted for, if allowance
be made for the influence of foreign
importations. It is true that almost every
county claims a breed of its own—Norfolk,
Suffolk, and Sussex, as well as Cumberland,
Lancashire, Leicester, Oxford, Middlesex, and
Gloucester, but, as Mr. Sidney has shown in his
Pig book, these names are given to pigs of
both colours, parti-colours, and all sizes. Size
may be dismissed at once as not a distinction,
because wherever there has been a large breed
or tribe, it has always been found possible to
create a small one of similar characteristics.
Thus, there are small Yorkshire as well as large
and small Berkshire; while Essex began small,
and have lately grown large.

The fact is, that in pig breeding, as in Short-
horns, as in turnips and mangold, oilcake and
guano, bones and clover seed, and Italian rye
grass, the British farmer has been tremendously
dependent on that bugbear of the agricultural
mind—the foreigner. There is not a pig
that winks, and waddles, and snores at an
agricultural show, that does not owe his talent for
obesity, his early maturity, his thin skin, which,
if not totally denuded of hair, is sprinkled with
a soft, pendent, criniary covering, the very opposite
of aboriginal bristles, to an alliance with the
southern or eastern foreigner: with the Chinese
or Neapolitan. The Chinaman is of several
colours, but most affects white; he is a small,
short-legged, thin-skinned, prick-eared gentleman,
and nearly all fat; so fat that the pure
breed won't do at all, unless to make lard. There
is scarcely a white prize among small breed in
England that would not be traced back to a
Chinese alliance, if there were a pigsty book
like the famous Strafford herd book. It is
impossible to trace the first importation of the
Chinese foreigner who has exercised so powerful
an influence over the manufacture of dairy-fed
pork. It probably dates back to our earliest
Eastern voyages. Sailors make pets of everything,
especially of pigs; and these prolific
early-breeding creatures, introduced on a
congenial soil, would soon spread themselves through
a hundred pig markets, and make their influence
felt, long before they became the subject of
discussions, essays, and orations.

In the beginning of the present century the
Chinese was in fashion, and continued to be
prized for nearly five-and-twenty years. The
direct importation has long ceased; no one of
any pig-breeding reputation keeps the pure
Chinaman, but his best qualities have been
permanently stamped on all our smaller, and some
of our larger breeds.

The other distinguished foreigner is the
Neapolitan, a black or brown, almost hairless, thin-
skinned fellow, of greater size and finer
symmetry, found thriving on the peas of the
groves of Salerno, and first imported into this
country by a political friend of Charles James
Fox, Mr. Western, long Whig M.P. for Essex,
translated, as Lord Western, into the House of
Lords, after the passing of the Reform, after
being rejected by the ungrateful electors of
Essex: we don't mean ungrateful in a political,
but in an agricultural sense, for Lord Western
worked hard at agriculture all his life, failed in
producing a South-down Merino, but invented
the improved Essex by grafting the Neapolitan
on a native black breed—that breed which, since
Lord Western's death, has made the name of
Fisher Hobbs famous in two hemispheres.

In Devonshire, the native Briton has been
entirely superseded by a Neapolitan Essex. In
Ireland, a mixture of Yorkshire and Berkshire,
much interlaced with foreign blood, has almost
crossed out the active, unprofitable, rough,
black Celt, who lived on little, and seldom got