Gone are the fleet legs, great head, bulky snout, terrible jaws,
warlike tusks, open nostrils, flapping ears, gaunt flanks, and racing
sides; and with these has gone everything that told of strength,
freedom, and wild life. In their place has come a cuboidal mass, twice
as long as it is broad or high, with a place in front for mouth and
eyes, and a foolish-looking leg under each corner. A mighty fall from
"freedom's lofty heights," but a wonderfully improved machine. The
modern hog is to his progenitor as the man with the steam-hammer to the
man with the stone-hammer,--infinitely more useful, though not so free.
It is not easy to overestimate the value of swine to the general farmer;
but to the factory farmer they are indispensable. They furnish a
profitable market for much that could not be sold, and they turn this
waste material into a surprising lot of money in a marvellously short
time. A pig should reach his market before he is nine months old. From
the time he is new-born until he is 250 days old, he should gain at
least one pound a day, which means five cents, in ordinary times.
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