Pleasant Grove Review | 1950-12-15 | Page 2 | Irma, Formosa's Big Pig, Dies for Mercy Goddess

Irma, Formosa's Eig Pig, Dies for Mercy Goddess TAIPEI, Formosa Probably the biggest pig in the world was sacrificed sacri-ficed recently near the capital of Nationalist China to Kwangyin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Robert Shekks, chief of the United Unit-ed States information service in Taipei, named her Irma. Irma weighed about 1,300 pounds, was more than six feet long and stood more than three feet high. Her height was difficult to measure meas-ure because she could not stand up the last three months of her life. She lay on her side and wheezed painfully. Three-quarters Berkshire, Irma had been growing for 23 months, fed primarily on soybean cake, sweet potatoe vines and middlings from rice. Irma had become one of the most talked about personalities in Formosa. For-mosa. Trucks and chartered buses climbed laboriously from the central cen-tral plain to the 1,500 foot hills where Irma lived on the farm of Chen Ching-yuan. Chen said thatafter the first announcement an-nouncement about Irma appeared in Taipei newspapers, 10,000 persons had crowded into his farmyard to see the pig.