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550 SWINE.
The best breeds for pork are the smaller Berkshire pigs, and the Oxfordshire, a variety of those: these are the handsomest pigs of this country. Both the Yorkshire and Shropshire stock have been much improved of late years, by a Berkshire cross, giv- ing them better loins and shorter legs. Essex, Suf- folk, and Norfolk,(part of the latter, near Lynn, excepted), have a most unprofitable breed, which nothing but indolence and the strongest prejudice could retain in those counties. It has been fashion- able to attribute a vast improvement to the intro- duction of the Chinese breed, but either on none, or very insuflicient grounds. Granting the alledg- ed improvement, we had no need of going to China, or even out of our own country for it. The truth is, I believe, that they have zo¢ improved our breed.;
But for the best information on this subject, which indeed deserves great attention from all cultivators, I take the liberty to refer country gentlemen and farmers, to Messrs. William and Thomas Wynt, and Messrs. Edmund Cotteril and Sons, salesmen for pig-stock, at Smithfield, Finch- Jey, and Barnet; men of the most extensive con- cerns, and first respectability in their line: and not only respectable for their solid, indepen- dent property, but for the well-known liberality and integrity of their characters._These gentlemen have taken great pains, during the last twenty years, to improve the breed of pigs in various parts of the country, and have succeeded as far as prejudice would allow. James Sewell, Esq. a gentleman far- mer, of Sutton, in Suffolk, and a friend of Messrs. Cotteril, has, through them, obtained an improved | breed
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