Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/776

 758 HOG and symmetry, mild disposition, easily fattened, the meat of excellent quality, and the dressed weight at 12 and 18 months 250 to 400 Ibs. ; it is not subject to cutaneous diseases. The Irish grazier is slow in coming to maturity, but crossed with the Berkshire is an excellent Improved Essex Hog. variety. The Woburn or Bedford breed was originally sent by the duke of Bedford to Gen. Washington, and was produced at Woburn, England, by a cross of the Chinese boar and a large English hog ; when pure they are white, with dark ash-colored spots ; they are of large size, with deep round bodies, short legs, and thin hair, easily kept and maturing early. The Middlesex is a popular breed in England, and has been considerably imported into the Uni- ted States ; it is derived from a mixture of the Chinese with some larger stock ; the color is usually white, and the size larger than the Suffolk, weighing at 18 months 800 to 900 Ibs. ; the bones are smaller than in the Essex. But the favorite of all breeds seems now to be the Suffolk, so named from that county in England, whence the London market has long been sup- plied; the present breed is believed to have originated from the old Suffolk crossed with the Chinese and Berkshire ; the pure breed is remarka~bly symmetrical, small and compact, short-legged and small-headed, the exact op- posite of the long, lank, and lean hogs of the western prairies; their early maturity, small consumption of food, and tendency to fat com- pensate for their want of size; the color is white. These are the most esteemed varie- ties ; there are many others, imported and do- mestic, which thrive well in peculiar districts. While hogs are kept in New England and the middle states mostly in pens, in the west they are allowed to range in the woods and fields till within three months of the time of killing them, feeding upon clover, corn, acorns, and mast. No animal displays the changes arising from domestication more than the hog, as may be seen by contrasting the large, savage, long- legged wild boar, leading dogs and horses a weary chase, with the small, docile, plump, short-legged Suffolk, with difficulty getting HOGAN from one side of his pen to the other. It is not probable that all the varieties of the hog are derived from the wild boar of Europe and Asia ; the Polynesian species, the African, and perhaps the babyroussa, have become crossed with introduced breeds, causing the same va- riety and confusion observed in all domesti- cated animals. The hog is not a stupid ani- mal ; like other pachyderms it is susceptible of education, and the stories of learned pigs and hunting hogs do no discredit to the order which contains the elephant. Several species of fossil hogs, of the genus sus, are found in the tertiary and diluvial deposits of central Europe; the fossil hogs seem to have been, like the present animal, charged with fat ; the teeth are the portions generally met with, as the bones from their spongy character would soon decay. Allied species are also found in the same formations in India. According to the census of 1870, the total number of swine on farms in the United States was 25,134,569. The states containing the most were Illinois, which had 2,703,343; Missouri, 2,306,430; Iowa, 1,872,230; Kentucky, 1,838,227; Ten- nessee, 1,828,690; and Ohio, 1,728,968. In many of the western states the slaughtering of hogs and the packing of pork form an im- portant industry. A great majority of the hogs are slaughtered and packed between the 1st of November and the 1st of March ; but recently summer packing has been found pro- fitable, and now large quantities of pork are packed during that season. The greatest centres for this industry in the United States are Chica- go and Cincinnati. Formerly Cincinnati ranked first, but the supremacy is now held by Chi- cago. The extent of the operations at these two points is indicated by the statement that of the 5,383,810 hogs packed in the southern and western states between Nov. 1, 1873, and March 1, 1874, 1,520,024 were packed in Chi- cago and 581,253 in Cincinnati. The states ranking highest in the magnitude of this indus- try are Illinois, in which the number of hogs packed during this period was 1,870,855 ; Ohio, 897,627 ; Missouri, 735,868, of which 463,793 were packed in St. Louis; and Indiana, 699,- 223. The total value of all the hogs packed in the southern and western states during the winter season of 1873-'4 was $63,370,339; aggregate gross weight, 1,444,311,304 Ibs. ; av- erage gross weight, 268'27 Ibs. ; total product of lard, 191,139,000 Ibs. IIOGAN, John, an Irish sculptor, born at Tal- low, county Waterford, in October, 1800, died in Dublin, March 27, 1858. Originally a law- yer's clerk, he showed so decided a taste for sculpture that at the age of 23 he was enabled by the liberality of some friends to visit Rome for the purpose of study. His "Drunken Faun " was pronounced by Thorwaldsen wor- thy of an Athenian studio, and he received for it a medal at the exposition in Paris in 1851. His career was passed in Ireland, and his works are chiefly religious and monumental subjects.