ss of any attempt to
procreate their species, but having been kept solely for the purpose of
winning prizes and adding to the renown of their owners, if not directly
adding much to their balances at the bank. The only way in which the
continued exhibition of these old stagers was made profitable was the
securing of customers for breeding stock from the exhibitors, who in far
too many cases were not the breeders of the winning animals. To so great
an extent had this purchase, frequently from middlemen or dealers of
exhibition pigs, become in the seventies of the last century, that some
of the live stock papers in the United States took up the cudgels on
behalf of the American breeders of pigs, who had been in the habit of
importing show winners from this country and plainly asked for the
English definition of a pure bred pig. It was pointed out at a recent
show of the Royal Agricultural Society several winners shown by one
exhibitor were entered as of certain defined breeds, yet neither age,
pedigree, nor name of breeder was given, the only particulars given in
the show catalogue being the name and address of the exhibitor, the name
of the pig, and the further statement age and breeder unknown. As our
American cousins asked, how could it be possible to ensure that a pig
was of a certain pure breed when it was admitted that no knowledge
existed of the breeding of the animal nor actually of the person who
bred it. This scandal, as it was termed, was one of the contributing
causes of the establishment of societies for the registration of the
pedigrees of the various types or breeds of pigs.

Other changes which have been great improvements have been the
limitation of the ages of boars and sows shown, the requirement that the
sow has within a certain fixed time farrowed a litter of pigs and that
when entered as being in farrow a certificate of subsequent farrowing
shall be furnished ere the prize money is paid over. The age of the
young boars and sows has also been reduced at most shows to six months,
or the pigs must have been farrowed in the year of the show. In the good
old times the age of the pigs shown in the classes for pens of two or
three or five, varied from six to twelve months, and the asserted age
given by the exhibitor was accepted as correct. At many of the important
shows not only are some means of identification asked for, but the state
of the dentition are variously dealt with; at some shows they are
disqua