ishes to have a proper herd of swine ought to choose them, in
the first place, of the right age, and in the second place, of good
conformation: which means large everywhere except in the head and feet
and of a solid colour rather than spotted: but the boar should have
without fail a thick neck in addition to these other qualities. Swine
of good breed may be known from their appearance, if both boar and sow
are of good conformation; from their get, if they have many pigs at
a birth; and from their origin, if you buy them in a place with a
reputation for producing fat rather than lean hogs. The usual formula
for buying runs thus: 'Do you warrant that these hogs are in good
health; that I shall take good title to them; that they have committed
no tort, and that they do not come out of a diseased herd?'

"Some add a particular stipulation that they are not affected with
cholera.

"In the matter of pasture, a marshy place is well fitted for hogs,
because they delight not only in water, but in mud, the reason for
which appears in the tradition that when a wolf has fallen upon a hog
he always drags the carcass into the water because his teeth cannot
endure the natural heat of hog flesh.

"Swine are fed mostly on mast, though also on beans, barley and other
kinds of corn, which not only make them fat but give the meat an
agreeable relish. In summer they go out to pasture early in the
morning and before the heat of the day: at midday they are brought
into some shady place, preferably where there is water: in the
afternoon, when the heat has abated, they are fed again. In the winter
time they do not go out to pasture until the hoar frost has evaporated
and the ice has melted.

"In the matter of breeding, the boar should be separated from the herd
for two months before the season, which should be arranged between
the rising of the west wind and the vernal equinox, for thus it will
befall that the sows (which are big for four months) will have their
litters in summer when forage is plenty. Sows should not be bred under
a year old, but it is better to wait until the twentieth month so that
they may have pigs at two years. They are said to breed regularly for
seven years after the first litter. During the breeding season they
should be given access to muddy ditches and sloughs, so that they may
wallow in the mud, which is the same relaxation to them that a bath
is to a man. When all the sows are stinted, the boars should be
segr