In the Channel Islands—Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark—the pig is an important animal, pork being the staple animal food of the Islanders during the winter. It is said to be very delicate, even more so than any in England. Almost every cottager keeps a pig, and is enabled to feed it the more easily, as his garden yields an abundant supply of produce.
The Channel Island breed, once gaunt and coarse, and of French extraction, is now greatly improved, and fattens rapidly. The pigs are kept in styes, and fed during the spring and summer months on buttermilk, bran, potatoes, cabbages, and all kinds of vegetables; in the autumn, almost exclusively upon parsnips, Bacon hogs are generally killed at about twenty months old, and average from 300 to 450 lbs. Sometimes, hogs attain to a much larger size; and instances have been known in which they have weighed 640 lbs., exclusive of the offal.
In the Isle of Man, the native breed closely approaches that of the Orkney and Shetland Isles. The animals resemble the wild boar in miniature, and roam about at liberty; yet they fatten readily, and yield excellent meat. Within the last few years, crosses from England have been introduced, and the plan of sty-feeding has been practised; but not with much success.
It is now time that we turn to Ireland, whence so much of the salted pork and bacon sold in England is exported.
The modern Irish pig has, within the last few years, become greatly improved. Formerly, it was a gaunt, flat-sided, large-boned, rough beast, long in the leg, sharp along the spine, long in the snout, and with huge flapping ears. It was a slow feeder, and yielded coarse meat. Latterly, the introduction of some of our best breeds, with which to cross the old Irish swine, has been attended with decided success, although there is still room for further improvement. The sides are sent, roughly salted, to certain houses in London, (and other large towns,) and are there finished off for the market.
Irish bacon is not to be despised, and, as we have said, the breed of pigs is generally much improved. Berkshire, Suffolk, Yorkshire, and even Chinese boars and sows, have been introduced, and by intercrossings, produced a considerable change—a change, however, neither quite so decided nor quite so general as is desirable. Besides, the plan of fattening upon potatoes is not calculated to do justice to the most improved stocks.
The Irish bacon is not of such good quality as that fed in England, as the animal is generally fattened on potatoes only, while the best practice here is, when half fat, to finish off with peas-meal, or barley-meal. The agricultural laborers, in counties where their condition is most comfortable, know that it is most profitable to buy the higher-priced English bacon, which swells in the boiling, and is at once more palatable and substantial than the potato-fed bacon
