170
THE HOG.
We give it verbatim, as many of our readers have probably never
entered into such a calculation, or formed the least idea of the amazing quantity of animal food which may be derived from this kind of stock:
"I am indebted to a worthy and sensible friend, and a friend also of the poor, for the following estimate of what I shall term 'pig population,' and set it in array against the increasing demands of the home population, which goes on at the rate of not quite 112 per cent, per annum—nay, little more than 114 by the last ten years' census. I think, with the assistance of my above-mentioned friend, I can feed the supernumeraries well, and in this way, at all events, save their bacon. Would you credit the assertion that in ten years—ten short years—and from two breeding sows, many millions can be produced? Would you suppose (for I certainly had no conception of the fact) that more than the present or even anticipated population of the country for ten years to come is not equal to the number of pigs to be thus born and bred in the same period, if we choose? But I shall proceed to proof and give the figures, which are unanswerable arguments when well founded. His calculation, then, is as follows, viz.: that in one year two sows (one year old) will breed ten each, of which we shall assume that one-half are females, and so proceed on that assumed equality.
| "The first year there will be males and females | 20 |
| From which take the males | 10 |
| And we have the result as breeders | 10 |
| At the second year, then, we may fairly take the same ratio of ten to each, viz.: | 10 |
| 2)100 | |
| And it gives us a hundred males and females, leaving, consequently, for the third year, breeders | 50 |
| I shall now drop the text, and merely give the figures, the same principle applying throughout | 10 |
| Third year | 2)500 |
| 250 | |
| 10 | |
| Fourth year | 2)2,500 |
| 1,250 | |
| 10 | |
| Fifth year | 2)12,500 |
| 6,250 | |
| 10 | |
| 62.500 |