The imperfections in the senses of taste and feeling is still more augmented by a leprous disease which renders him almost absolutely insensible. This disorder proceeds perhaps less from the texture of the skin and flesh of this animal than from his natural filth, and the corruption which must result from the putrid food which he frequently devours; for the wild boar who usually lives upon corn, fruits, acorns, and roots, is not subject to this distemper, nor is the pig while it continues to suck. The disorder is only to be prevented in the domestic hog by keeping him in a clean stable and feeding him with wholesome food: his flesh will become excellent and his fat firm and brittle, if he is kept for a fortnight or three weeks before he is killed in a clean paved stable, without litter, giving him no other food than dry wheat, and letting him drink but little; for this purpose a hog of about a year old and nearly fat should be selected.
The usual method of fattening hogs, is to give them plenty of barley, acorns, cabbages, boiled peas, roots, and water mixed with bran. In two months they are fat; their lard is thick but neither firm nor white; and their flesh, though good, is rather insipid. They may be fattened at less expence in woody countries, by conducting them into forests during autumn, when acorns, chesnuts, beech-mast, must quit their husks and fall from the trees. They eat indiscriminately all wild fruits, and fatten in a short time, especially if a little warm water mixed with bran and pease-meal is given to them every night on their return home; this drink makes them sleep and augments their fat to such a degree that they are sometime unable to walk or scarcely move. They fatten much the quickest in autumn, both on account of the plenty of food and because they lose much less by perspiration than in the summer months.
It is not necessary in fattening the hog, to wait, as with other cattle, until he is full grown, for the older he is the more difficult it is to fatten him, and his flesh decreases in goodness with age. Castration, which should always precede fattening, is usually performed when they are six months old, and either in spring or autumn, as both heat and cold are injurious to the healing of the wound. When this operation is performed in the spring, they are generally fit for fattening the following autumn. They continue growing for four or five years, and even to that period it is not limited, as boars kept for propagation sometimes increase in size during the sixth, and the wild boar is always larger in proportion to the number of his years: the life of which sometimes extends to 25 or 30. According to Aristotle hogs live twenty years, and both males and females are fertile till the fifteenth. They can couple by the age of nine or twelve months, but it is better to keep them separate until they are eighteen months or two years. The sows have but few young at the first litter, and those are generally weak, even when a year old; she is at all times in season and solicits the male; she goes four months after copulation, and litters at the beginning of the fifth; she will receive the male almost immediately after and consequently bring forth twice in the year. The wild sow has but one litter in the year, and as she perfectly resembles the domestic one in every other respect, this difference may arise both from her not having the same kind of nourishment, and being obliged to suckle her young much longer. In fifteen days pigs are fit to kill; as many females are unnecessary, and as castrated hogs bring most profit, it is customary not to leave with the mother, after that period, more than one or two females, and seven or eight males.
The boars kept for propagation should have a thick body, rather short than long, a large head, short snout, long ears, small fiery eyes, a thick neck, flat belly, broad thighs, short thick legs, and strong black bristles. Black hogs are always stronger than white ones. The sow should have a large body, spacious belly, and large dugs, and some attention should be paid to her being of a mild disposition. After conception she should be taken from the male, as he will sometimes do her an injury: she should be plentifully fed when she litters, and watched lest she destroys her young; and the male must then be carefully kept away, or he will devour the whole of them. It is common to let the females go with the males in the spring, that they may litter in the summer, and that the pigs may acquire strength before winter; unless when two litters are required in the year, then she is put to the male in November, and again at the beginning of May: some of them will regularly produce every five months. The wild sow generally goes with the male in January, and brings forth in June; she suckles her young three or four months, and they never separate from her before they are two or three years old; and it is not uncommon to see her accompanied with two or three different litters at a time. The domestic sow is not permitted to suckle her young more than two months; as early as three weeks even, they go with the mother to the fields, by way of being habituated to her mode of living, and five weeks afterwards they are weaned, when, for some short time they have a little milk, mixed with bran, given them morning and evening. Hogs are particularly fond of earthworms and roots, for the purpose of procuring which it is that they tear up the ground with their snouts. The wild boar, who has a stronger snout than the domestic one, digs deeper, and nearly in a straight line, while the latter does it very irregularly.
The wild boars do not separate from their mothers until the third year, and to which age they are called by hunters flock-beasts, from that circumstance. They never go alone until they are strong enough to encounter the wolf. At that time they form themselves into flocks, and if attacked, the largest and strongest front the enemy, and by pressing against the weak ones keep them in the middle; the domestic hogs follow the same method, and therefore require not to be guarded with dogs. They are very untractable, and one man cannot manage more than fifty of them at a time. They procure a number of wild fruits in autumn and winter by being taken to the woods, as they do worms and roots in moist lands in summer, both of which are good for them; and they may be allowed to go into waste and fallow lands during the spring. From March to October they are taken out as soon as the dew is off the ground, and kept to feed till ten o’clock; about two they are suffered to go out again, and continue till the evening. In the winter they are only let out when the weather is fine, as dew, snow, and rain, are very injurious to them. When a heavy rain or storm comes on, it is not uncommon to see them desert the flock one after another, and run and cry until they arrive at the stable-door; and it is the youngest which cry the loudest; this cry is different from their usual grunting, and resembles that which they make when tied up for slaughter. The male cries less than the female; and the wild boar seldom cries but when he is wounded in fighting with another; the wild sow cries more often, and when suddenly surprised will breathe with such violence as to be heard at a great distance.
Although these animals are great gluttons, yet they do not attack or devour other animals; sometimes, however, they eat corrupted flesh. Wild boars have been seen to eat horse-flesh, and the skin of the deer, and the claws of birds have been found in their stomach; but this is, perhaps, more from necessity than instinct. It cannot, nevertheless, be denied that they are very fond of blood, and of fresh and bloody flesh, since they will eat their own young, and even children in the cradle. Whenever they find any thing succulent or humid, fat or unctuous, they first lick and then swallow it. It is common for a whole herd of these animals to stop round a heap of new-dug clay, and though it is but very little unctuous, they will all lick it, and some of them swallow great quantities. Their gluttony is as gross as their nature is brutal: they have scarcely any distinct sentiments; the young ones hardly know their mothers, for they are very apt to mistake her, and to suck the first sow that will permit them. Fear and necessity seem to give more instinct and sentiment to wild hogs, for the young are more attached to their mother, who also appears more attentive to them than does the domestic sow. In the rutting season the male follows the female, and generally stays about a month with her in the thickest and most solitary parts of the forest: he is then more fierce than ever, and becomes perfectly furious if another male endeavours to occupy his place, in that case they fight, wound, and sometimes kill each other. The wild sow is never furious but when her young is in danger; and it may be remarked in general, that in almost all wild animals the males are more ferocious in the rutting season, and the females when they have young.
The wild boar is hunted by dogs, or taken by surprise in the night, by the light of the moon. As he flies slowly, leaves a strong odour behind him, defends himself against the dogs, and wounds them dangerously, he should not be hunted by dogs designed for the stag, &c. as it will spoil their scent, and give them the habit of moving slowly. Mastiffs will serve the purpose, and are easily trained to it. The oldest only should be attacked, and they are easily known by the tracks of their feet; a young boar of three years old is difficult to take, because he runs a great way without stopping; but the old boar does not run far, suffers himself to be close hunted, and has no great fear of the dogs. In the day he usually hides himself in the most unfrequented parts of the wood, and comes out in the night in quest of food. In summer it is very easy so surprise him, especially in the cultivated fields, where the grain is ripe, which he will frequent every night. As soon as he is killed the hunters cut off his testicles, for their odour is so strong that in five or six hours the whole of his flesh would be infected. Of an old wild boar the head only is good to eat, while every part of the young one, of not more than one year old, is extremely delicate. The flesh of the domestic boar is still worse than that of the wild one, and it is only by castration and fattening that they are rendered fit to eat. The ancients castrated the young wild boars, which they could get from their mothers, and then returned them again into the woods, where they soon grew fat, and their flesh was much better than that of domestics hogs.[L]
[L] See Aristotle’s Hist. Animal. lib. vi. cap. xxviii.
No one who lives in the country is ignorant of the profits arising from the hog; his flesh sells for more than that of the ox, and his lard for nearly double; the blood, intestines, feet, and tongue, are all prepared and used as food. The dung of the hog is colder than that of other animals, and should not be used for any but hot and dry lands. The fat of the intestines and web, which differs from the common lard, is employed for greasing wheels, and many other purposes. Sieves are made of the skin, and brushes and pencil-brushes are made of the hair and bristles. The flesh of this animal takes salt better, and will keep longer than that of any other.