The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-08-22
WILD HOGS IN SOUTH PHILIPPINE FIGURES.
SPORT OF HUNTING THEM SAID
TO BE GOOD.
Game Found From the Southern APP
palachians to the Mississippi River
Abound in Forests.

Sportsmen are not accustomed to
think of the wild hog as game that
may be hunted in the United States,
but the fact remains that there are
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 the 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 hog
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 for
ests and mountains of North and South
Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Geor-
gia and in the lowland forests of Ar
1t was in the mountain region that
the hog first became wild. Settlers
moved into the southern mountains
from nearly all of the Atlantic settle
ments.
There were two essentials in the do
nestle economy, of the mountaineer.
These were pigs and corn. The form
er 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 it's
natural life. SO pig raising prospered
in the mountains. Sometimes the ami
mails were penned up, but more often
they were allowed to run wild and
gather the mast which in autumn COW
cred the ground about mountain for
ests. Gradually they began to grow
fearful of the pen and of man, and lit
tie by little the broods which were
born in the forests and ran wild dur
ing the summer 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 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 hoped to be affected
by "anti-fat." His ribs became WISH
BILE and he was long, lean and lank,
like a mOuntaineer or a City-eating
Cracker" Running develops long
10 T,it VII ha 4
possessed legs which barely served to
| carry it around the narrow limits of
the pen, stood as high as hound and
ran like a frightened deer.
There has been no organized pig
sticking" among the spOrtsmen of the
South as yet. Men from a number of
aristOcratic Southern clubs who go in
to 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
fatted on mast, has none of the strong
taste that will come to it later on, so
the hunting dinner in the mountain is
considered a feast if there is such a
pig to be brought on roasted as any col
ored cook knows how to roast pig.
More and more each year this sort of
appreciation 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 comparable with that
furnished by the wild hog of Europe
Perhaps the pig KILN" 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 capture, as is desired.
The others attend to the dressing Of
the killed and transportation and fat
tening of the captured, and all share
equally in the profits.-Little Rock
CArk) Gazette.