Peach-orchard boar (1869, 1877)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>DARE has an entry for peach-orchard boar:
>
>[1885 Century Illustr. Mag. 29.681 cTN, An' don't stan' ther' a-gawpin'
>like er runt pig in er peach orchard.]
>[1953 Randolph-Wilson Down in Holler 108 Ozarks, A candidate for
>Congress once said that his opponent, a handsome fellow and popular with
>the ladies, was "wild as a boar in a peach orchard."]
>1967 DARE Tape WA30, [FW:] Can you tell me how hungry you were before
>you started eating? [Inf:] You mean tonight? Hungrier than a peach
>orchard boar.
>1986 DARE File, Crazier than a peach orchard boar.
>1992 Houston Chron. (TX) 5 Apr sec G 1, Crazy: . . Nuttier than a peach
>orchard pig.
>1995 Brophy Coll. 54 swMO (as of c1960), Peach-orchard borer [sic],
>crazy as a.
>1997 NADS Letters nFL, I have heard this from my native North Floridian
>in-laws as "peach orchard boar." The idea is that wild hogs ate the
>peaches whole, and became agitated when they passed the pits. Thus one
>can be "wilder than a peach orchard boar."
>1998 Ibid TX, I have . . heard the phrase "peach orchard boar" all my
>life from mostly rural folks in West Texas, East Texas, New Mexico,
>Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Florida. It is a widespread and
>commonly used phrase always used as "drunk as a peach orchard boar" or
>"crazy as a . . " or "wild as a . .". This phrase comes from the fact
>that if hogs eat the rotting, fermenting fruit that has fallen to the
>ground . . they actually get drunk, stagger around, fall down, and run
>into things.
>Ibid, I . . often heard from my mother-in-law "crazy (or wild) as a
>peach-orchard boar." She explained that it was from the fact that pigs
>foraged among the fermented fallen fruit in peach orchards and got drunk
>and disorderly.

A little earlier, from N'archive, without the "wilder than ..." or whatever:

----------

_Galveston [TX] Daily News_, 4 Jan. 1877: p. '4':

[story about the Houston TX election: a man explains why he has voted
Democratic instead of Republican]

<<.... it 'pears to me that this 'publican party is a mighty onsartain
thing. I believe it haint got no backbone nowhars. It 'minds me of a
peach-orchard boar that's broke down in the lines (loins.) He is no longer
good for anything at all-- aint able to get pigs and aint fitten to eat.>>

----------

Why "peach-orchard boar" here instead of just "boar"? Because the
peach-orchard boar is impotent from poor diet and alcoholism? Because the
meat of a peach-orchard boar is even less palatable than that of some other
boar? Or did "peach-orchard boar" conventionally refer to an elderly
decrepit semi-feral boar [who frequented the peach orchard since he wasn't
fed], or something like that?

Here's an earlier item apparently referring to "peach orchard boars" in
'real life' (not in a simile or other figure of speech):

----------

_St. Joseph [MI] Herald_, '9 Oct. 1869' [date not on page but approx.
correct by internal evidence], p. '3':

[Tips for marketing pork, supposedly taken from the Loiusville
_Courier-Journal_]

<<In feeding your hogs for the fall market, don't fail to put your peach
orchard boars into the drove at least once a month before your hogs are
weighed; by this means you will add to the weight of your hogs, ....>>

----------

This is apparently a humorous or sarcastic/ironic piece (e.g., it advises
selling maggoty bacon, which will weigh a little more and have an 'active'
look).

I assume the peach orchard boar is taken to be an unmarketable or worthless
animal here, presumably one lacking meat or lacking good meat.

-- Doug Wilson


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