The Grit-advocate., 1901-11-15
EXCITING TIMES At "PIG-KILLINs'
IN MOUNTAINS.
These Wild Porksrs of Tennessee Have
Degenerated from Domexticated sires
of European OriEin-AnImals Long
and Lank Like the Hunters.

be hunted in the United States, but
the fact remains that there are thou
sands upon thousands of the animals
wandering through certain sections Of
the South. They are as wild as deer
and well nigh as formidable as the
bear. For some reason the hunting
of pigs has not yet come to be gener
ally cassed as sport by Southern
hunters, probably for the reason that
for 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 hunt
ers are coming to wait for the pig to
grow fat on the mast of the forest and
then to hunt him for both sport and
food. Tn home of the American wild
hogs begins. in the southern Appala-
chan 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 Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Georgia and in the lowland forests of
Arkansas, Mississippi and louisiana.
Like the wild horse of the West the
hog is native OF the American Con-
tinent, but has degenerated from do
mesticated sires of European origin.
1t is hard for lis to remember this
about the horse, yet it is true that all
the herds which roamed the plains of
the West, set the American youth wild
to handle the iasso and demoralized
trainers when captured. were the off
spring of ancestors introduced from
Europe after the discovery Of America.
So with the hog. Its ancestor was,
no doubt, fat and contented as any
well-organized pig should be. II voy-
aged across the ocean with the early
colonists and then raised a family
whose offspring has degenerated until
the sire would never guess them to be
his kin. 1t was in the mountain region
that the hog first became wild. Set
tiers moved into the Southern noun
tains from nearly all of the Atlantic
settlements. There were two essen
tials in the domestic economy of the
mountaineer. These were pigs and
corn. The former were killed and
salted, to be eaten in the hot months
They made meat and fat and butter
With pork and corn meal a family
could live out it's 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 ground about
mountain forests. Gradually they be-
gan to grow fearful of the pen and of
man, and little by little the broods
which were born in the forests and ran
wild during the summer months be-
came harder to round up when killing
time came. Now and then one espe-
cially wild would escape and never be
caught Pigs of this sort would nat
urally be the widest, and their fear
OF man would be contributed with
double force to their offspring. So
the wildness of the breed increased
with each generation. They multiplied
rapidly. OF course, some of the wild
ones would be killed each year, but
the numbers were not appreciably di-
minished in that way. And what a
change came over the pig as it dropped
away from the ways of its cultured an
cestors and became once more a saw
age! Its short hair became long and
coarse. Mountain climbing is a great
reducer Of obesity and affected the pig
as the stout man hopes to be affected