The Way of a Pig
THE " gentleman that pays the rent " has become of late an aristocrat, a gentleman indeed. The woods of " feudal lords," once reserved for fox and pheasant, are equipped for his special convenience. Some of us have seen a pack of hounds mixed up in a small covert with a herd of middle-whites, to the double distress of the owner. During this later vogue many have discovered how intelligent and clean an animal the pig is, and how one pig differs from another pig. Mr. Morrison has ventured into the region of pig psychology, not for philo- sophic reasons, but to tell all whom it may concern just how the feeding and tendanee and selection of pigs may bring profit by ensuring health and quick development. Some breeders of bacon pigs, if not of pure-bred pigs, have gone a step or two further. Mr. Templewest, for example, owes his salient success largely to the study of pig psychology. His pigs bring up larger litters than other people's, thanks to the sow's affectionate confidence in her specially appointed nurse I Mr. Morrison calls attention to the greater success of the small pig-breeder in this regard, but hardly develops the theme enough. The book would have been better indeed it he had been more faithful to his suggestive title. But if there is too little individuality and too much pig, the treatise is beyond praise in certain respects. So thorough, practical, and indeed almost philosophic a system and theory of feeding any domestic animal has seldom been elaborated. If anyone wishes to keep pigs for profit he should find in the book a short cut to a long experience. The whole ground is covered, housing, marketing, showing and the rest ; and all themes are treated with knowledge and a certain originality. But what is done supremely well is the " Health Department" of the book. It would have done good if there was more insistence on uniformity of product in crossbreeding for bacon, after the Danish method ; and what may be called " the greenhouse system " is insufficiently commended ; but in general the book is not- only a clever, scientific and practical treatise upon an animal, even yet too much neglected, as well as mismanaged, in Britain—and, incidentally, in Australis. It is also a model of the way to treat what someone called " animal literature." The subject ought always to start from a study of the peculiar make-up of the animal, including its instincts.
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