“The Gauls[130] are reputed to put up not only the largest quantity but the best quality of pork:  evidence of its quality being that even now hams, sausage,[131] bacon and shoulders are imported every year from Gaul to Rome:  while Cato writes concerning the amount of pork cured by the Gauls:  ’In (northern) Italy the Insubres are wont to put up three or four thousand cuts of pork [the bulk of which can be appreciated from the fact that among that people][132] the hog some times grows so fat that it is not able to stand on its feet or to walk, so that it is necessary to put it on a cart to move it any where.’  Atilius the Spaniard, who is a truthful man and learned in many things, tells of a hog which was killed in further Spain or Lusitania from which two chops, sent to the Senator L. Volumnius, were found to weigh three and twenty pounds, the fat on them being so thick that it measured a foot and three fingers from the skin to the bone.”

“I can testify to some thing not less extraordinary than what you have related,” said I, “for in Arcadia I saw with my own eyes a hog which was so fat that not only was it unable to get up but a shrew mouse having eaten a hole in its back had there made its nest and was rearing a family.  I have heard that this same thing happened in the country of the Veneti.”

“Usually,” resumed Scrofa, “the fecundity of a sow may be learned from her first litter, for in later litters she does not vary much from the number of pigs in the first.

“In the matter of rearing young swine, which we call porculatio it is customary to leave pigs with the sow for two months, and then when they are able to feed themselves to separate them.  Pigs born in the winter are apt to be runts on account of the cold and because the sow refuses to suckle them, partly by reason of her lack of milk at that season and partly to protect her teats from the teeth of the hungry pigs.

“Each sow should suckle her pigs in her own stye, because a sow will not drive strange pigs away from her, and it results that if the litters are mingled the breed deteriorates.  The year is naturally divided for the sow into two parts, because they breed twice a year, being heavy in pig for four months and suckling for two.  The stye should be built about three feet deep and a little more in width and such a height from the ground as will permit a pregnant sow to get out without straining herself, as that might cause her to abort.  A good measure of the proper height from the ground is what is necessary to enable the swineherd to keep watch that no little pigs are crushed by the sow, and to clean out the bedding easily.  There should be a door to the stye with the lower sill elevated a foot and a palm high so as to prevent the pigs from following the sow when she goes out.  As often as the swineherd cleans out the stye he should strew the floor with sand, or some thing else to absorb moisture.

“When a sow has had her pigs she should be fed liberally to enable her to make milk:  for this the ration is usually two pounds of boiled barley, indeed some feed this both at morning and at night if other feed is lacking.  When pigs are taken from their dam they are sometimes called delici or weanlings being then no longer lactantes or sucklings.