ough the Berkshire or the Small Black is credited
with being the origin of the darker coloured Northamptonshire spotted
pig. The qualities claimed for these spotted or "plum pudding" pigs as
they are locally termed, are prolificacy, quick growth, hardihood, and
the production of pork possessing a large proportion of lean to fat
meat. They are also good grazers, and grow to a size quite the equal of
the Berkshire. In form they are perhaps more suited for the fresh pork
trade than for the manufacture of bacon of the kind now so much in
demand.

THE LARGE WHITE AND BLUE PIGS

Those large, coarse-boned pigs with hair of a white colour and skins
more or less mottled with blue are gradually giving place to pigs with
finer hair, skin, bone, and quality of meat. The coarse lop ears are
being reduced in size and thickness, whilst the pig itself is becoming
less gaunt and its early maturity considerably increased by crossing
with the better quality Large White and the quickly maturing Middle
White. These coarse white with blue markings pigs were common in the
Fens of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, the Isle of Ely and Lincolnshire, and
in the counties of Bedford, Cheshire, etc.

WHITE PIGS

Within the memory of persons now living, white pigs of varying types
were found in various parts of this country. Many of these white pigs
found in Norfolk, Suffolk, Shropshire, and Wales had little to recommend
them as they were flat sided, long legged, hard feeders, and required to
be comparatively old before they could be turned into pork. A vast
improvement has of late years been effected in these unprofitable swine
by crossing them with compact and early maturing pigs of different
colours, but mainly white pigs until the last few years, when Large
Blacks and even a few Gloucestershire Old Spots boars have been
introduced in Norfolk.

At one time white pigs of a small size were by no means uncommon in
Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, Yorkshire, and parts of Berkshire, and other
counties. The origin of these small, compact, and early maturing pigs
appears to have been a cross of the imported Chinese on the neater and
shorter country pigs of a white colour. For a period these handsome
pigs were quite fashionable amongst the well-to-do, but the general
public objected to the pork produced by them, owing to its excessive
fatness. The bacon curers still more strongly objected to the short
sides and the very small amount of lean meat in the cured carca