more assemble, ascend the mountains, remain there for four hours, and in the evening return to their styes.
"Such is the life of the pigs, not only of Langen-Schwalbach, but those of every village throughout a great part of Germany: every day of their existence, summer and winter, is spent in the way described."
In France, swine are kept in herds, and in many districts the feeding of them in the woods and forests, (le glandage,) under certain conditions and restrictions, has been a source of no inconsiderable emolument to the forester. Indeed, to such an extent was it carried in certain localities, that it became an object of political economy. But of late years it has much diminished; the progress of agriculture is fast sweeping away those immense tracts of woodland country which formerly existed in England and France, and with them depart the denizens of the forest, wild or tame.
Nature designed the hog to fulfil many important functions in a forest country. By his burrowing after roots and such like, he turns up and destroys the larvæ of innumerable insects that would otherwise injure the trees as well as their fruit. He destroys the slug, snail, snake, and adder, and thus not only rids the forest of these injurious and unpleasant inhabitants, but also makes them subservient to his own nourishment, and thus to the benefit of mankind.
The fruits which he eats, are such as would otherwise rot on the ground and be wasted, or yield nutriment to vermin; and his digging for earth-nuts, &c., loosens the soil and benefits the roots of the trees. Hence, hogs in forest-land may be regarded as eminently beneficial, and it is only the abuse of it which is to be feared. The German agriculturist, Thaër, does not, however, advocate the forest feeding of swine unless they are kept in the woods day and night and carefully sheltered; as he conceives that the bringing them home at night heats their blood, and nullifies the good effects of the day's feeding. He likewise considers that, although acorns produce good firm flesh, beechmast makes unsound oily fat.
But if he is a useful animal in this public point of view, how much more so is he to individuals? Among the poorer classes of society how often is the pig their chief source of profit. In Ireland is this especially the case; there he is emphatically "the gintleman what pays the rint" better treated often than the peasant's own children. The small cost at which these animals can be reared and fattened, and their fecundity and wonderful powers of thriving under disadvantages, render them an actual blessing to many a poor cotter, who, with his little savings, buys a young and ill-conditioned pig, fattens it on all the refuse he can beg or spare, or collect, and sells it at a good profit, or occasionally, perhaps, kills it for the use of his family, who thus obtain an ample supply of cheap, nutritious diet.
Were it not for this animal, many of the laboring poor would
