offal of most domestic animals, the pig is not behind the other mammalia
in its usefulness to man. Its skin, especially that of the boar, from
its extreme closeness of texture, when tanned, is employed for the seats
of saddles, to cover powder, shot, and drinking-flasks; and the hair,
according to its colour, flexibility, and stubbornness, is manufactured
into tooth, nail, and hairbrushes,--others into hat, clothes, and
shoe-brushes; while the longer and finer qualities are made into long
and short brooms and painters' brushes; and a still more rigid
description, under the name of "bristles," are used by the shoemaker as
needles for the passage of his wax-end. Besides so many benefits and
useful services conferred on man by this valuable animal, his fat, in a
commercial sense, is quite as important as his flesh, and brings a price
equal to the best joints in the carcase. This fat is rendered, or melted
out of the caul, or membrane in which it is contained, by boiling water,
and, while liquid, run into prepared bladders, when, under the name of
_lard_, it becomes an article of extensive trade and value.