The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-28
HUNTING WILD HOGS.
Exciting Times at the "Pig-Killin's" in
 the Tennessee Mountains.

| Exciting Times at the 'Pig-K1llin s' in
 the Tennessee Mountains.
 Sportsmen are not accustomed to
 think of wild hogs as game that may be
 hunted in the United States, but the | fact remains that there are thousands
 upon thousands of the animals wan dering through certain sections Of the
 south. They are as wild as deer and
 we'll nigh as formidable as the bear. For some reason the hunting of pigs has not yet come to be generally classed as sport by southern hunters, probably for the reason that for a good share of the year the flesh of the wild hog is not good
 for food But such is the case likewise with the deer. the squirrel, and in fact, every sort of game, and little by little hunters are coming to wait for the pig
 to grow fat on the mast of the forest
 and then to hunt him both for sport and food.
 The home of the American wild hogs begins in the southern Appalachian
 Mountains and extends westward to what is known as the Delta" the name locally applied to the low bottom lands
 of the Mississippi from Memphis to the Gulf. One finds them in the forests and
 mountains of North and South Caroli-
 na. Kentucky Tennessee, Georgia and in the lowland forests of Arkansas. Mis- sissippi and Louisiana.
 | Like the wild horse of the west, the hog Is not native of the American
 continent, but has degenerated from do- mesticated sires of European origin. It
 is hard for us to remember this about
 the horse, yet it is true that all the
 herds which roamed the plans of the
 west set the American youth wild to handle the lasso, and demoralized train- 1 CTS. when captured, were the offspring of ancestors introduced from Europe
 after the discovery of America. So with the hog. It's ancestor was, no
 doubt, fat and contented as any we'll
 organized pig should be. It voyaged 1 across the ocean with the early colo nists and then raised a family whose | offspring has degenerat ted until the sire would never guess them to be his kin Tt was in the mountain region that the hog first became wild. Settlers moved into the souther nmountains from nearly all of the Atlantic settle
 ments. | There were two essentials in the do- nestle economy of the moYntaineer. These were pigs and corn. The former were killed and salted, to be eaten Tn inc hot months They made meat and fat and butter. With pork and corn meal a family could live out its natural life. So pig raising prospered in the mountains. Sometimes the animals were penned up, but more often they were allowed to run wild and gather the mast which in autumn covered the gro,,nd about mountain forests Grad ua1lv they began to grow fearful of the nan and of man, and little by little the hroods which were born in the forests and ran wild during the summer months became harder to round up when killing time came. Now ana then one especially wild would escape ana never be caught Pigs Of this sort would naturally be the widest and their fear of man would be contributed with double force to their offspring 50 the | wildness of the breed increased with each generation They multiplied rap | idly.
 Of cour Q some of the wild cn9s would be killed each year, but the numbers were not appreciably diminished in that way
 And what a change came over the pig ! es it dropped away from the ways Of 1 its cultured ancestors and became once more a savage! Its short hair became l long and coarse Mountain climbing is a great reducer of obesity and affected | the pig as the stout man hopes to be affected by "anti-fat" His ribs became visible and he was long lean and lank, | like a mountaneer or a clay eating | "cracker" Running develops long legs and the pig, whose ancestor had pos sessed legs which barely served to carry if around the limits of the pen, stood as high as hound and ran like fright ened deer.
 All this, of course has fitted the pig to exist in his new capacity as wild animal He is harmless when not at tackled and the mountaineer gives him little trouble, except in the fall when he now and then goes out with his gun and