STRAIGHT FROM THE BUSH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 335, 21 April 1928, Page 25

STRAIGHT FROM THE BUSH

TAMING THE PORKER HIS VALUE TO MANKIND In the Scottish “Journal of Agriculture.” Professor J. A. Thomson tells a story of the domestication of the pig.' Long before there were any farms in Great Britain, he says, there were Wlb\T IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN * * SYMONDS STREET ON TUESDAY?

herds of vvild boars in the. forests, and they meant much to our forefathers. A wild boar killed by a spear after it had been caught in a pitfall, was a treasure trove. It meant feasting, and so the boar’s head remains to-day in the forefront of holiday fare—a sort of symbol of unstinted hospitality, besides being a very palatable dish in itself. When agriculture began it was more necessary than ever to keep the dangerous wild boars in check, for they did much harm in rooting in the fields among the crops. We read of a great boar hunt in Germany as late as the 18th century, when over 2,000 were killed before the chase was over; but in Britain there is not much evidence of big boar hunts after the end of the 16th century. Considerable rewards were offered from time to time for the destruction of a savage old solitary

which became more than usually aggressive and the terror of the countryside. An interesting feature in the boar’s history is that it seems to have submitted repeatedly to domestication first in one .country and then in another. So that whereas man seems to have brought to Britain already domesticated races of dog and sheep, cattle and horses, he seems to have domesticated British wild boars, just as others had domesticated French or German. Italian or Spanish wild boars. It comes to this: that the domestication of the wild boar is not difficult. It is of the nature of swine to be much pre-occupied with their bellies, though it must be remembered that

the wild races are quick, strong and courageous. There is a pleasant custom of kef'*' 3 the young ones more or less in the centre of the wild herd, so that there is less risk of their being carried off by wolves. An old solitary has almost no formidable enemy except a pack of w.-lves. and even before them he dies game, with ripped - up corpses around him, marking an honourable end. The domesticated pigs of Europe are mostly the descendants of the European wild boar, “Susscrofa,” still holding its own well in remoter parts of Central and Southern Europe; but there seems to have been mingling with another race, the domesticated descendants of an Oriental wild boar, called “Susvittatus.”