" Who killed Cock Robin ? " ' Was it
the ship that brought its cheap cargoes of grain from America to Liverpool, where the immense modern mills give imported grain advantages quite refused to the home product ? Ease of transport doubtless delivered the first blow, but not the death blow, for the mill, as many others, enjoyed very prosperous days as a grist mill after the white foreign flour won the victory. It was a little gold mine within memory ; but its fortunes waned in exact ratio with the disappearance of another village industry, to wit, the keeping of pigs by the cottagers. Not so many years ago it was the ambition of every cottage dweller to keep a pig or pigs ; and the pigs were all fed on the meal ground from local corn in the local mill. The pig was the engine of social progress. For example : What is the story of that prosperous young farmer who rides past the mill ? His ancestor was presented with an ailing lamb. He saved it and sold it ; and bought a young pig and, later, a sow which littered well. Presently he rented a field or two and before he was an old man had bought a farm, which flourished greatly. To-day there is scarcely a pig in the parish, and the Parish Council was compelled to hire labour to clear the ground offered for allotments. In the Pig Days there was a waiting list for any patch of ground offered as allotment.
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