The natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the reason is
plain--because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep that
turbulent animal to the full extent of its time: however, my neighbour, a
man of substance, who had no occasion to study every little advantage to
a nicety, kept a half-bred bantam-sow, who was as thick as she was long,
and whose belly swept on the ground till she was advanced to her
seventeenth year, at which period she showed some tokens of age by the
decay of her teeth and the decline of her fertility.
For about ten years this prolific mother produced two litters in the year
of about ten at a time, and once above twenty at a litter; but, as there
were near double the number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From
long experience in the world this female was grown very sagacious and
artful. When she found occasion to converse with a boar, she used to
open all the intervening gates, and march, by herself, up to a distant
farm where one was kept; and when her purpose was served, would return by
the same means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be
reduced to four or five, and such a litter she exhibited when in her
fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon, juicy, and tender; the
rind, or sward, was remarkably thin. At a moderate computation she was
allowed to have been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs: a
prodigious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped! She was killed
in spring, 1775.