Orson Clark-11/23/81 - Pg 9

Interviewer: Did you have any pigs or sheep or anything like that?

Orson Clark: Oh, they used to keep a few pigs.

Interviewer: Any particular breed? The reason why I'm asking this, Orson, is that there is almost nothing published on the early agriculture of Davis County; what crops were grown, what varieties of livestock were kept. This is a very important part that is being lost because no one has every taken the trouble to ask anyone, "what kind of breeds did your father have, in terms of pigs, sheep, cattle, horses, and so on." So I thought if I could get this information it would be positive.

Orson Clark: Brookshire pigs, mostly. We used to raise them. I used to have to start school late and get out early in the spring. There was one winter that I was out slopping those pigs.

Interviewer: That would have been cold. I slopped pigs too but not that late.

Orson Clark: I only had one of these great big, like off of one of these old time engines, a big old tank. They would put water, old potatoes if they had any, squash and grain. There would be a fire underneath. We would stir that up, get it all mixed up and warm and cooked. That was fed to the pigs.

Interviewer: I didn't have to heat it up, but I remember slopping pigs. Getting everything that came out of the kitchen plus the garbage cans, plus everything else. All the old apples and pears and peaches, everything. I remember getting drunk once on fermented plums or something like that. That was funny. Did you have chickens, too?

Orson Clark: Oh, yes. We always had chickens, but they run loose. We had a nice chicken coop. The chickens were kept there in the wintertime but in the summer they would run loose.

Lucille Clark: you had some sheep too when we were married.

Orson Clark: I'm not much on the sheep. 

Your mother corded some wool to make a quilt.

Orson Clark: Oh, once in a while they would have a sheep. In the spring they would shear it.

Interviewer: That would be more to provide wool for the family than for the meat wouldn't it?

Orson Clark: Yes.