Books: Homage to Hogs

PIGS: FROM CAVE TO CORN BELT (305 pp.)—Charles Wayland Towns & Edward Norris Wentworth—University of Oklahoma ($4).

Back in 1812, all the dock workers around Troy, N.Y. knew "Uncle Sam" Wilson. A tall, talkative meat packer with a friendly word for everybody, Uncle Sam was often on hand to see his Government-consigned barrels of pork and beef loaded on boats and sent down the Hudson for the war against the British. When one passenger asked an Irish watchman at the dock what the "U.S." stamped on each barrel meant, the watchman had a...