PIGS IN CLOVER

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20494, 10 May 1938, Page 23 (Supplement)

PIGS IN CLOVER

All lovers of animals, including most of those who have also a taste for their flesh, will be cheered by the news of the brighter future foretold for that sadly maligned creature, the harmless, necessary, and occasionally learned pig. From time immemorial man has been notoriously unfair to the four-footed friend who supplies his daily breakfast table with bacon and his sideboard with hams, to say nothing of providing him and his wife with bristles for their hairbrushes and the chastisement of their children. Human beings have been so busy turning up their noses at his unwashed appearance—solely due to the squalid conditions in which, through man’s ingratitude and no fault of his own, he has been condemned to live—that they have omitted to pluck the stye out of their own eyes. Now this is all to be changed. They will no longer be able in moments of exasperation to call their offspring dirty little pigs to their faces. Scientific research has demonstrated beyond doubt, what has long been suspected by a few choice minds in advance of their age, that in his natural environment, where the surroundings please and only man is vile, the pig, though a beast, is a clean beast ... he does not thrive as he should if kept up to his middle in muck. It may be true that you cannnot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and it is proverbially unwise to buy a pig in a poke. But why try, and why be so foolish, when by treating the pig population properly you can make more money to put into your purse, poke, or pocket than you can possibly earn by keeping them in the unsavoury and unwholesome pens that have made the name of pigs a byeword among the nations? There, for all who have eyes to see and noses to smell, lies the broad modern arterial road to pig progress and profit. It is therefore a welcome sign of the times to learn that in future “care is to be devoted to making pigs really warm and comfortable,” on sound business lines. The ventilation, and, best of all, the sanitary arrangements of their man-made quarters are to be improved and perfected, and they are to have dry and clean beds to sleep in. Owing to the popular belief that pigs rash enough to take to the water are apt to cut their own throats, swimming pools will presumably be ruled out. But, short of this, with the abovementioned conveniences at their disposal, with a regular supply of the essential vitamins in the prospect, till the time comes for big and little pigs to go to market, of a happy and comfortable family life, they will have the placid enjoyment of most of the best things that the heart of pig or man can desire.