Part 13 (1/2)
”There is a wonderful fact concerning goats which has been stated by certain ingenious shepherds and is even recorded in the book of Archelaus, namely, that they do not breathe through their nostrils, like other animals, but through their ears.[125]
”Upon Scrofa's four considerations which relate to the care of goats I have this to say. The flock is better stabled in the winter if its quarters look toward the Southeast, because goats are very sensitive to cold. So also, as for most cattle, the goat stable should be paved with stone or brick that the flock may be less exposed to damp and mud. When the flock pa.s.ses the night out of doors, a place should be selected having the same exposure and the fold strewn with leaves to protect the flock from fouling themselves.
”There is not much difference in the method of handling goats in the pasture from sheep, but goats have this characteristic, that they prefer the mountain woodland pastures to meadows, for they feed eagerly on the brushwood and in cultivated places crop the shrubbery; indeed, their name _caprae_ is derived from _carpere_, to crop. For this reason it is customary to stipulate in farm leases that the tenant shall not graze any goat on the leased land, for their teeth are the enemies of all planted crops: wherefore the astrologers were careful to station them in the heavens outside of the pale of the twelve signs of the zodiac, but there are two kids and a goat not far from Taurus.
”So far as concerns breeding, it is the custom to separate the bucks from the pastured flock at the end of autumn and confine them apart, as has been said with respect to rams. The nannies which conceive at this time drop their kids in four months, and so in the spring. In what regards rearing the kids, it is enough to say that when they are three months old they are raised and may join the flock. What shall I say of the health of these animals who never have any? yet the flock master should have written down what remedies are used for certain of their maladies and especially for the wounds which often befall them by reason of their constant fighting among themselves and their feeding in th.o.r.n.y places. It remains to speak of number: this is less to the herd in the case of goats than with sheep because of the wantonness and wandering habit of the goat: sheep, on the other hand, are wont to flock together and keep in one place.
”For another reason it is the custom in Gaul to divide the goats into many flocks rather than concentrate them in large ones, because a pestilence quickly takes possession of a large herd and sweeps it to destruction. About fifty goats is considered to be a large enough flock.
”The experience of Gaberius, a Roman of the equestrian order, will ill.u.s.trate the reason for this: for he, who had a thousand jugera of land near Rome, met one day a certain goatherd leading ten goats to town, and heard him say that he made a denier[126] a day out of each goat, whereupon Gaberius bought a thousand goats, hoping that he might thereby derive from his property an income of a thousand deniers a day: but so it fell out that he lost all his goats after a brief illness. On the other hand, among the Sallentini and near Casinum they graze their goats in flocks of one hundred.
”Almost the same difference of opinion exists as to the relative number of bucks to nannies, for some, and I am among them, allow a buck to every ten nannies, but others, like Menas, make it fifteen, and some even twenty, like Murrius.”
_Of swine_
IV. ”And now,” concluded Cossinius, ”which of you Italian swine breeders will stand forth and tell us of his herd? Surely he should be able to speak with the most authority whose cognomen is Scrofa.”
At this pleasantry, Tremelius turned upon Cossinius and said: ”You seem to be ignorant why I am called Scrofa, but, in order that our friends sitting beside you may understand, you should know my family did not always bear this swinish cognomen, nor am I of the race of Eumaeus. The first of us to be called Scrofa was my grandfather who, when he was quaestor under the praetor Licinius Nerva, and was left in command of the army in the province of Macedonia during the absence of the praetor, it so happened that the enemy thought they had an opportunity to gain a victory and began to attack the camp. My grandfather, in exhorting the soldiers to take up their arms and go out against the enemy, exclaimed that he would soon scatter them as a sow (scrofa) does her pigs, and he was as good as his word. For in that battle he so overwhelmed and discomfited the enemy, that on account of it the praetor Nerva was hailed Imperator and my grandfather obtained his cognomen and so was called Scrofa.[127] So, while neither my great grandfather nor any of my ancestors of the Tremelian family was ever called Scrofa, yet as I am not less than the sixth of our family in succession who has attained praetorian rank, it ill becomes me to run away in the face of your challenge, so I will tell you what I know about swine. Indeed from my youth I have been devoted to agriculture, so that I am perhaps as well acquainted with that animal as is any of you great stockmen: for who of us cultivates a farm but keeps hogs, and who has not heard his father say that that man is either lazy or a spendthrift who hangs in the meat house a flitch of bacon obtained from the butcher rather than from his own farm.
”He who wishes to have a proper herd of swine ought to choose them, in the first place, of the right age, and in the second place, of good conformation: which means large everywhere except in the head and feet and of a solid colour rather than spotted: but the boar should have without fail a thick neck in addition to these other qualities. Swine of good breed may be known from their appearance, if both boar and sow are of good conformation; from their get, if they have many pigs at a birth; and from their origin, if you buy them in a place with a reputation for producing fat rather than lean hogs. The usual formula for buying runs thus: 'Do you warrant that these hogs are in good health; that I shall take good t.i.tle to them; that they have committed no tort, and that they do not come out of a diseased herd?'
”Some add a particular stipulation that they are not affected with cholera.
”In the matter of pasture, a marshy place is well fitted for hogs, because they delight not only in water, but in mud, the reason for which appears in the tradition that when a wolf has fallen upon a hog he always drags the carca.s.s into the water because his teeth cannot endure the natural heat of hog flesh.
”Swine are fed mostly on mast, though also on beans, barley and other kinds of corn, which not only make them fat but give the meat an agreeable relish. In summer they go out to pasture early in the morning and before the heat of the day: at midday they are brought into some shady place, preferably where there is water: in the afternoon, when the heat has abated, they are fed again. In the winter time they do not go out to pasture until the h.o.a.r frost has evaporated and the ice has melted.
”In the matter of breeding, the boar should be separated from the herd for two months before the season, which should be arranged between the rising of the west wind and the vernal equinox, for thus it will befall that the sows (which are big for four months) will have their litters in summer when forage is plenty. Sows should not be bred under a year old, but it is better to wait until the twentieth month so that they may have pigs at two years. They are said to breed regularly for seven years after the first litter. During the breeding season they should be given access to muddy ditches and sloughs, so that they may wallow in the mud, which is the same relaxation to them that a bath is to a man. When all the sows are stinted, the boars should be segregated again. A boar is fit for service at eight months and so continues until his prime, after which his vigor decreases until he is fit only for the butcher to make of his flesh a dainty offering for the people. Our name for the hog, _sus_, is called [Greek: hus]
in Greek, but formerly it was [Greek: thus], derived from [Greek: thuein], meaning to offer as a sacrifice, for it seems that victims were chosen from the race of swine for the earliest sacrifices; evidence of which remains in the tradition that pigs are sacrificed at the initiation to the mysteries of Ceres, that when a treaty is ratified peace begins with the slaughter of a pig, and that in solemnizing a marriage the ancient kings and mighty men of Etruria caused the bride and the bridegroom to sacrifice a pig at the beginning of the ceremony, a practice which the earliest Latins and the Greek colonists in Italy seem also to have followed: nam et nostrae mulieres, maxime nutrices, naturam qua feminae sunt in virginibus appellant porc.u.m, et graecae [Greek: choiron], significantes esse dignum insigni nuptiarum.[128]
”The hog is said to be created by nature for the food of man[129] and so life and salt perform the same functions for him, as they both preserve his flesh.
”The Gauls[130] are reputed to put up not only the largest quant.i.ty 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.
”Pigs are considered to be clean ten days after birth, and for that reason were then called by the ancients sacred, as being then first fit for sacrifice: and so in the _Menaechmi_ of Plautus, when a character thinking some one in Epid.a.m.nus to be out of his wits and seeking to purify him, asks: 'How much are sacred pigs here.'
”If the farm affords them, pigs should be fed grape husks and stalks.
”After they have lost the name of _lactantes_ the shoats are called _nefrendes_ because they are not yet able to break down (_frendere_ that is _frangere_) the bean stalks. _Porcus_ is the ancient Greek name for them but is fallen into disuse, for the Greeks now call them [Greek: choiros].