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Pigs:
Pigs were for long a relatively underrated aspect
of farming.
They were a sideline, capable of turning to good account incidental by-products,
such as the whey from the dairy, but otherwise not the focus of great
attention. Where they could, farm labourers and other villagers might
keep a pig at the bottom of the garden, to feed off household scraps and
anything else they could find. When it was killed, it added a very welcome
supply of meat to the family diet. Pig keeping began to emerge from the
shadows as a specialist aspect of farming in its own right during the
course of the nineteenth century. Some very notable Victorian landowners,
including the Royal Family, had very extensive and well-appointed piggeries
on their estates and followed with interest the performance of their stock
at the agricultural shows. The twentieth century saw the development of
very large commercial pig enterprises, operating almost on a mass production
basis, followed towards the end by a renewed interest in less intensive,
outdoor methods.
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Pigs
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