The Portland daily press., 1881-02-08
Our Pigs Too Fat.

Mere blubber is not desirable food in our
climate. As pigs are now bred and fattened,
they are little more Than animated lard.
Everybody has been trying for years to see
how fat they could make their pigs, and
how much they conld make them weigh in
the shortest possible time. This univers al
system of stuffing has resulted in breeding
out muscle (lean meat) and thickening up
the fatty portions. Pigs are confined in
close quarters, and are stuffed to the very
verge of breaking down of their digestive
functions and often beyond it. In the lat
ter case, they are speedily slaughtered before
they run down. Usually, pigs are confined
in foul pens, where they are obliged to lie
in their filth and breathe air poisonous with
fumes of decay. The whole system is
wrong, resulting in distasteful, if not un-
wholesome, food. The effect of this has been
to change the nature, or rather, the physical
construction, of the animal, from muscular
TO blubberous condition. Exercise and
slow growth conduce to muscular develop
ment, as muscles where and when required,
by simply allowing the animal to roam at
will in field during his growth. The pig
thus allowed tc roam would, when fattened,
possess double the amount of muscle (lean
meat) over one kept in a closed pen.
The recognition of this principle put in
practical use can, in time, charge the char
acter OF pigs so as to make them more palat-
able. Everybody complains nowadays of
pork being too fat. Pig meat is naturally
healthy food, and adapted to the wants Of
laboring people, as it furnishes plenty of
nutrition, which they require. The modern
improvements in breeding have resulted in
making heavy weights in short time, and
in rounding and thickening the bodies, but
the so-called improvement has reduced the
demand acd the value of pigs for food
There are two ways to remedy this evil: one
is, to enlarge the pig pen to pig pasture,
and the other is, to grow pigs to the more
muscular breeds, or to select breeding stock
from those of any breed which give evidence
of more development in this direction than
of fat. 1t is singular what follies farmers,
who should be the most sensible of people,
will pursue. They have been daft so long
on pug-nosed and fat-cheeked pigs that they
have nearly expelled the pork barrel from
every mans cellar, and one of the most pro-
fitable animals from the farm. Northern
farmers, the delusion of pug noses and fat
cheeks, have ridiculed the "rail splitters' of
the South, whereas the truth is, the South
ern planter had more sagacity and practical
sense than the admirer of improved stock,
for the former has well nigh bred himself
out of a staple article of food and staple
source of profitable income, while the latter
has kept up the reputation of his bacon.
We want more pig pastures and fewer pig
pens. Growing pigs should have more range,
so that they may be perfect development
of body, bone and muscle They want less
concentrated food and more of light ma
ture, such as grass and roots, to keep them
growing but not fat. A continuous system
of rearing and feeding in this manner
would produce breeds of hogs not so heavy,
perhaps, in weight, but more desirable.-N.
Y. Tribune.