Page:The Hog.djvu/157

155 At the age of about fifteen, her litters began to be reduced to four or five; and such a litter she exhibited when in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon, juicy and tender; the rind or sward was remarkably thin. At a moderate computation she was allowed to have been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs—a prodigious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped. She was killed in the spring of 1775."

Although we should by no means advise the keeping of an animal to such an age, still, notwithstanding that it is the fashion or custom to do otherwise, we would advise every breeder never to part with a sow while she continues to bring forth a numerous and fine progeny, which many will do for years, and to be a good nurse; and in general these animals become better nurses the oftener they farrow: her value he knows; the value of the young animal that he intends should succeed her, has yet to be tested; and if one of the two must be fattened for the butcher, we should decidedly recommend that it were the untried one. Varro states that we may judge of the fruitfulness of a sow from her first litter, the subsequent ones being generally all of about the same number.

A sow that brings forth less than eight pigs at a birth the third or fourth time she farrows is worth little as a breeder, the sooner she is fattened the better; but a young sow that produces a great number at her first farrowing cannot be too highly valued.

Whenever it is practicable, it should always be so arranged that the animals shall farrow early in the spring, and at the latter end of the summer or quite the beginning of the autumn. In the former case the young pigs will have the run of the early pastures, which will be a benefit to them and a saving to their owners; and there will also be more whey, milk, and other dairy produce which can be spared for them by the time they are ready to be weaned. And in the second case there will be sufficient time for the young to have grown and acquired strength before the cold weather comes on, which is always very injurious to sucking pigs.

Martin says: "None of the pachydermata are, as a general rule, remarkable for fertility. The elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, &c., appear to produce only a single offspring at a birth, and that after a long period of gestation; for example, the gestation of the elephant is said to extend to twenty months and eighteen days. It is then not until after a considerable lapse of time that she again becomes pregnant, and she produces only a single young one. The hog-like peccaries produce, according to Azara, only two at a birth. To this rule the swine is an exception; it may be that the wild species are less prolific than the ordinary domestic variety of the genus sus, yet they are fertile, but in the ordinary hog this fertility is at a maximum. Ordinarily, a healthy sow produces eight, ten, of twelve young ones twice a year. The period of gestation is