The Large White and Blue Pigs
Those large, coarse-boned pigs with hair of a white colour and skins more or less mottled with blue are gradually giving place to pigs with finer hair, skin, bone, and quality of meat. The coarse lop ears are being reduced in size and thickness, whilst the pig itself is becoming less gaunt and its early maturity considerably increased by crossing with the better quality Large White and the quickly maturing Middle White. These coarse white with blue markings pigs were common in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, the Isle of Ely and Lincolnshire, and in the counties of Bedford, Cheshire, etc.
White Pigs
Within the memory of persons now living, white pigs of varying types were found in various parts of this country. Many of these white pigs found in Norfolk, Suffolk, Shropshire, and Wales had little to recommend them as they were flat sided, long legged, hard feeders, and required to be comparatively old before they could be turned into pork. A vast improvement has of late years been effected in these unprofitable swine by crossing them with compact and early maturing pigs of different colours, but mainly white pigs until the last few years, when Large Blacks and even a few Gloucestershire Old Spots boars have been introduced in Norfolk.
At one time white pigs of a small size were by no means uncommon in Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, Yorkshire, and parts of Berkshire, and other counties. The origin of these small, compact, and early maturing pigs appears to have been a cross of the imported Chinese on the neater and shorter country pigs of a white colour. For a period these handsome pigs were quite fashionable amongst the well-to-do, but the general public objected to the pork produced by them, owing to its excessive fatness. The bacon curers still more strongly objected to the short sides and the very small amount of lean meat in the cured carcases. During the last thirty years comparatively few of these pretty, but useless, pigs have been bred.
Black Pigs
The description given of the two main types of white pigs would apply equally well to the Black pigs common in this country, save with respect to colour. The long flat-sided black pig was found in Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Sussex, etc. These pigs were noted for their prolificacy, hardihood, and quick growth, whilst the sows furnished a full supply of milk to their youngsters, but they were such slow feeders that it became necessary to cross them with pigs which matured more quickly. A type of black pig similar in form to the Small White was also found in Essex and Suffolk, whilst in Devonshire, Dorset, and one or two other counties the colour of the pigs was blue rather than black, and of a somewhat larger size, but possessing the same weakness, too large a proportion of fat to lean meat.
CHAPTER II
PURE BREEDS
The task of writing a description of the various breeds of swine has been rendered less difficult by the formation during the past half-century of societies for the registration of the pedigrees of the pigs of the different breeds, and by the setting up of scales of those points which pigs for entry in the particular herd books should possess. The first of these societies was the National Pig Breeders Association, of which the present writer was the honorary secretary for two years. At the time of its formation the breeds of pigs most generally recognised were the Berkshire, the Large, Middle, and Small Whites or Yorkshires, and the Small Black breed. It was intended that the pedigrees of the pure bred pigs of each of these breeds should be recorded by the Association and published in one herd book.