Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-22
WILD B0ARS IN SOUTH
SPORT OF HUNTING THEM GROW
ING IN UNITED STATES.
Game Found From the Southern APP
palachians to the Mississippi
River.
From the Little Rock ark Gazette.

From the Little Rock tArk.l Gazette.
Sportsmen are not accustomed to think
of the wild hog as game that may be hunt
ed in the United States, but the fact re-
mains that there are thousands Of the ami
mails wandering through certain sections of
the south. They as wild deer and
wellnigh as formidable as the bear. For
some reason the hunting of pigs has not
yet come to be generally classed sport
by southern hunters, probably for the rea-
son 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 COM
ing 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 hog be-
gins In the southern Appalachian noun
tains and extends westward to what is
known as the Delta" the name locally APP
piled to the low bottom lands of the Mis-
sissippi from Memphis to the gulf. One
finds them in the forests and mountains of
North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Ten
nessee, Georgia and in the lowland forests
of Arkansas Mississippi and Louisiana.
1t was in the mountain region that the
hog first became wild. Settlers moved into
the southern mountains from nearly all of
the Atlantic settlements.
Becoming Wild.
There were two essentials in the domestic
economy of the mountaineer. These We're
pigs and corn. The former were killed and
sailed. to be eaten in the hot months. They
made meat and fat and butter With pork
and cornmeal 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 al
lowed to run wild and gather the mast
which in autumn covered the ground about
mountain forests. Gradually they began 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 sum
mer months became harder to round up
when killing time came.
Now and then one especially wild would
escape and 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 with
each generation. They multiplied rapidly.
And what a change came over the pig as
1t dropped away from the ways of its cult
ured ancestors and became once more a
savage Its short hair became long and
coarse. Mountain climbing is a great
Queer of obesity and affected the pig as the
stout man hoped to be affected by anti
fat. His ribs became visible and ne was
long, lean and lank, like a mountaineer or
a clay-eating Cracker" Running develops
long legs, and the pig, whose ancestors had
possessed legs which barely served to carry
stood as high as a hound and ran like a
frightened deer
Stalking the Animals.
There has been no organized pig stick
ing" among the sportsmen of the south as
yet. Men from a number of aristocratic
southern clubs who go into the mountains
for a few weeks of hunting in the fall stalk
the animals and shoot them. The young
pig of three or four months growth, when
fatCed on mast. has none of the strong
taste that Will come to it later on. SO the
hunting dinner in the mountains is consid-
cred feast if there is such pig to be
brought on roasted as any Colored cook
knows how to roast pig.
More and more each year this sort Of APP
probation of the pig Increases. and the
time is not far distant when the southern
hunters will find some way to have sport
with this sort of game which will be COM
parable with that furnished by the wild
hog of Europe. Perhaps the pig KILN 8"
of eastern Tennessee may point out the
way. Four neighbors are in the clique that
manages this pig stickin'." Chief among
them is Dan Goforth. a hunter who has
more bears to his credit than the average
sportsman has squirrels 1t is his duty to
bring the animals to bay and kill or cap
ture. as is desired. The others attend to
the dressing of the killed and transporta-
ton and fattening of the captured, and all
sh a in no