The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1883-05-03
AN ESSAY ON HOGS.
=. ID. Cebura. Of Kansas, Enlightens IN
Chicago Agricultural Convention.

F. u. Coburn of Kansas, read a very interes-
ting and humorous paper on ''the hog with a
streak of lean and streak Of fat" Appended
is an abstract of it:
at is fashionable to ridicnle and denounce
him, and To insist that he is the dire author of
leprosy, consumption, cancer, scrOfula, and the
most disgusting diseases that affiict humanity.
This is the teaching of prejudice, not of science.
The hog outlives all hostility, and laughs, so To
speak. at the want of success of his slanderers.
Still is the rocking roast pig the sacrifice of
many dinner table, and still is the rural cell
ing festooned with savUfy sausage, and the
smoke-hOuse fragrant with ham. The hog is u
true cosmopolite-a citizen of the world. lie in-
creases and multiplies, and inherits every part
of the habitable globe. He is ubiquitous as
the bat lie does not stand in high repute for
his manners, but he is the most accommodating,
thriving with equal content in the sty of the
rich and the kitchen of the INDECENT. He wal
lows sometimes, but naturalists say that he
does this for the sake of cleanliness. which is
next to godliness-fOr the same reason that the
Pacific Islanders grease themselves. Among
his quaint peculiarities, are his grunt Of salts
faction and his sqeual of remOnstrance and re-
prOach. lie should never be fed until he stops
his squealing; it is the approved method of
breaking him of the habit.
''The hog is the product of natures most eco
nOmical thought. There is no part that cannot
be utilized. HIS flesh, fat, bristles hair. hOofs,
and bones are all turned to account. The dl-
visions of his unctuous body says Apicius, 'are
as familiar as the divisions OF the earth. His
ears and feet go to sOuse. His brains are a
choice dish for the epicure. His tail has for
ages been claimed by successive ages of children
their peculiar property. Tradition points ont
to appreciate 1t, roast on the Goals, take in the
fingers, and eat without salt. The hog is the
staff of life, the arch enemy Of famine-the poor
mans best friend. Moreover, in his earlier days
he is strikingly playful, frisky, cunning and
graceful-as much more interesting than 4 hu-
m infant inf the IRE a the latter
interesting as so much putty. In adult pighOod
he is omniverous and self-reliaut, hold and ex-
peditionary; and he breeds faster, and keeps
cheaper than any other domestic animal Amer
lea is prominently the home Of the hog-he is a
logical deduction from Indian corn. He was in-
troduced into Virginia in 1000, and there he
multiplied SO rapidly that the eolonsts were
Obliged to palisade Jamestown-high TO keep
out the indians; and close TO keep out the hogs.
He eats what is placed before him, and new
er complains of the cooking grumblrs il his
sleeping room is not dusted. He never gosSips,
nor uses tobacco in any form. He puts mp with
the worst accommodations. and behaves the
best when well corned. His habits are natural,
though he never runs in debt to the tailor; and
though he knows nothing of mathematics, he
has no superior in square root. He hates clubs.
and never keeps his wife awake nights by snor-
ing. He belongs TO a literary family, and,
though he never writes, is the acknowledged
knight of the PEN
The speaker then gave long statistical his
tory of the hog. closing with the following:
That our Western farmers, especially in
Kansas and Nebraska, have in many instances
apparently lost sight of the fact that the hog Is
a grass-eating animal, I aorount for largely by
the scarcity of timber. for cheap and ready fen
cling material tor pastures. and the lack yet,
of tame grasses, of which there would, even
now, he much more were not fencing 50 eXpen-
sive. Besides, growing grasses has as yet been
largely an experiment on our Western prairies,