Читать книгу The Pig: Breeding, Rearing, and Marketing - Spencer Sanders - Страница 9

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.