HAMPSHIRE.
Here there are two varieties, the one larger than the other, in color they are either white or black and white, with long necks and bodies, flat sides, and large bones. The smaller variety are more easily fattened to a considerable size and weight, and make excellent bacon, but the larger kind require an extra amount of food to bring them to perfection, although when this object is attained they will often weigh from 600 to 800 lbs.
Considerable improvement has however been latterly effected by crosses of the Berkshire, Chinese, Essex, and Suffolk pigs, with the large old Hampshire hog. The animals resulting from these intermixtures are better shaped and more profitable; in fact, they bear about them the characteristics of the breed from which they were obtained. There is also a third variety of swine found in Hampshire, called the "Forest pigs," differing materially from the true Hampshire breeds, and in many points strongly resembling the wild boar, from which it is not improbable they derived their de- scent, for the last wild boars known to be at liberty in England were those turned into the New Forest by Charles I., and which he obtained from Germany with a view to the reintroduction of the fine old sport of boar-hunting. The Forest pig is broad-shouldered and high-crested; light and lean in the hinder quarters; has a bristly mane and erect ears; is of a dark or blackish color; and lives chiefly on beech-mast and acorns. This breed is no favorite in Hampshire; the animals are wild, fierce, not apt to fatten, and, from their peculiar make, do not cut up to advantage when killed; it is, however, now losing its distinctive characteristics, and becoming, as it were, more civilized or domesticated.
SUSSEX.
The breed of this county are by some authors supposed to have descended from the large spotted Berkshire swine; while others assert them to be a variety of the black and white Essex pig, if not the original stock. They are of a moderate size, handsomely formed, thin-skinned, and black and white; not, however, spotted, but white at one extremity and black at the other. The hair is fine and long, but spare; the head long and tapering; the ears well set on, and pointing forwards; the eyes quick and vivacious; and the snout fine. The chief fault in their make is, that the bones are somewhat too large. They grow quickly, feed well, fatten kindly, and will, when full-sized, weigh from 250 to 350 lbs.
Some of the finest pigs of this kind ever reared were in the possession of the Western family, at Felix Hall, Essex.
