such acres in Portugal. It is an interesting and peculiar fact that the poorer the land the better the cork. This superior quality results from a finer texture due to slower growth.[1] Therefore, some fine cork forests are on sandy or stony land, which in any other country would be called "barrens" and would find its highest productivity by growing a pine forest. In some districts the trees are made the sole basis of estimating the value of the land on which they stand. Near Evora, in south-central Portugal, the method of calculating the value of a cork forest is as follows: The twenty-year yield of cork (two strippings) is taken as the basis. The buyer pays 600 to 650 reis (1913) (1,000 reis=$1.08) per arroba (33 pounds) of cork capacity. Thus a good acre of cork trees would bring $125 or more, and the man who sells throws in the land.
English owners of cork estates in Portugal estimate that acorns alone produce from a half to two-thirds of the total pork crop of that country.[2]
Area thousand Population No, of swine* sq, miles million million Portugal ......eeeee5 " 6.0 about one Virginia .....ccsecee 2.4 % to %
- Yearbook. U. S, em of Agriculture.
The Portuguese hog leads a lean and hungry life for a year and a half or two years, and then comes an orgy during which he eats acorns all day and sleeps on them at night, as he lives in the open beneath the trees. In three months he doubles or triples his weight and passes on to the ceremonies at the abattoir.[3]
- ↑ So pronounced is this influence of slow growth that cultivation of cork oak trees often injures the quality of cork.
- ↑ The Quarterly Journal of Forestry, Vol. VII, No. 1, p. 37, estimated the annual acorn consumption of the Portuguese pig at 200,000 tons. This figure is interesting when compared with the one million tons of corn produced in the state of Virginia by cultivating 1,500,000 acres to its serious injury by washing away of soil.
- ↑ Separate tracts are fenced off for the winter food of hogs that are to be kept until the next year.
