While she lives she knows
all the happiness of cow life, and knows it to the full. What more can
she ask? She would starve on the buffalo grass which supports her
half-wild sister, "northers" would freeze her, and the snow would bury
her. She is a product of high cow-civilization, and as such she must
have the intelligent care of man or she cannot do her best. With this
care she is a marvellous machine for the making of the only article of
food which in itself is competent to support life in man. If my
Holsteins are not machines, they resemble them so closely that I will
not quarrel with the name.
What is true of the cow, is true also of the pork-making machine that we
call the hog. His wild and savage progenitor is lost, and we have in his
place a sluggish animal that is a very model as a food producer. His
three pleasures are eating, sleeping, and growing fat. He follows these
pleasures with such persistence that 250 days are enough to perfect him.
It can certainly be no hardship to a pig to encourage him in a life of
sloth and gluttony which appeals to his taste and to my profit.
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