LIVE STOCK BREEDING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21183, 2 November 1938, Page 3

LIVE STOCK BREEDING

CORRELATED FEATURES MODERN TYPES OF PIGS There is a widespread conviction among experienced livestock breeders that the texture of hair or wool, skin and flesh, are closely correlated. The finer the hair or wool, the thinner and softer will be the skin, and these outward and observable qualities indicate a corresponding fineness of texture or “grain” in the flesh. This accounts for the Importance attached by the early beef breders to the "handle” of cattle destined for the fattening paddocks and consumption by a discriminating public. In confirmation of this widely-held theory comes a complaint from the manufacturers of bristle brushes that the modern types of pigs, developed for finer texture of flesh, no longer grow bristles suitable for the manufacture of their wares. Pigs in Great Britain, they say, do not produce any bristles worth mentioning. The modem animal which has been evolved for meat quality and early maturity grows a fine, short and scanty coat. During the past 25 years bristles measuring 4in to 61n in length have increased four to ten times in value, and should the pigs of Russia, Siberia, Poland, China and India be developed along similai lines, pigs’ bristles threaten to become quite unprocurable.