CHAPTER XYIIL

LIVE-STOCK.

The first sight of a pure in-and-in-bred Florida hog or
C0V7 is not calculated to impart to the visitor from north¬
ern climes, especially if he be from the stock-regions, a very
favorable impression of Florida as a stock-raising State.
The hog, the genuine " cracker" hazel-splitter, is a lean,
lank, wiry, quick-motioned beast—a deer in hog shape. It
is a slander on the portentously fat porkers of Illinois to
call the Florida specimen a hog at all. From the snout to
the tail he is all of a size, and the head is one third of the
total length, the long and thin body being placed on no¬
ticeably long and thin legs. And how he can run, or root !
The tourist always enjoys a hearty laugh when told " Those
are hogs," and innumerable are the puns and jokes at their
expense. The well-to-do Northern or Western farmer visit¬
ing here is very sure to view them with downright con¬
tempt, and to form a very decided opinion about the fitness,
or unfitness—mostly the latter—of Florida as a stock State.

But such a hastily formed conclusion would be a great
mistake. Florida is a first-class State for live-stock, and
no one should feel any confidence in an opinion based on the
specimens of wild, uncared-for stock found roaming about
the woods.

It should be said, moreover, that the Florida hog, in
spite of his looks, has many good points which deserve
recognition. In the first place, his meat is always tender
and good ; and his lean hams are delicious, either dried.