ed.

This system of breeding has become somewhat common owing to the
comparatively small outlay required in the purchase of a boar as
compared with the purchase of both boar and sows, and also to the belief
which is general that a greater improvement in the produce is noticeable
when the boar is pure bred and the sows of ordinary or no particular
breed, than if the sows are pure bred and the boar a common bred one. In
addition to this there is the important point that the pure bred boar
should be able to beget at least fifty litters in a year whereas the
pure bred sow will not produce more than two litters annually, so that
the advantage obtainable from the outlay on one pure bred boar is
twenty-five times as great as is possible from the purchase of a pure
bred sow.

There is also another advantage to the owner of a boar who has only a
limited number of sows, he can allow his neighbours to make use of his
boar on payment of a liberal service fee, which combined will partially
pay for the prime cost of the boar.

A considerable number of pig breeders are influenced in the purchase of
a pure bred boar rather than of a sow by the belief that pure bred sows
are neither so prolific nor such good mothers as are common bred sows.
This belief was even more common in years gone by than it is at the
present time, and it must be candidly confessed that there existed
substantial grounds for it. Some fifty years since it became
fashionable, particularly amongst those who had suddenly become rich by
trade or in other ways, to exhibit live-stock at the agricultural shows.
They may have been animated by the laudable desire of endeavouring to
assist farmers and stock breeders generally, or a desire to gain a place
in the sun may have had some slight influence. As the majority of these
exhibitors of stock had no special knowledge of stock, they were
compelled to place themselves entirely in the hands of their managers
and stockman, who generally received by arrangement a certain percentage
of the prize money won by the stock. It was then only natural that they
gave far more attention to the show points of the animals in their
charge than to the breeding qualities.

The supply of pedigree animals was also very limited at about the period
mentioned so that it was much more difficult to avoid too close
breeding, nor was there the same care taken in the private record of the
pedigrees of the animals bred. These various causes combined l