72 AGRICULTURE 0E MAINE. 



A PLACE FOR THE PIG ON THE FARM. 



By Forest Henry, Dover, Minn. 



(Stenographic Copy.) 



I am advertised to speak to you on the subject "A Place for 

 the Pig on the Farm.'' I really believe that there is a place for 

 the pig on the Maine farm as much as on the Minnesota farm, 

 and, although you may not want to keep them in such large 

 numbers as we do in the West, I do believe that you can raise 

 pigs successfully and profitably here in the East, perhaps not 

 as your main industry but as a side issue, in connection with 

 your dairying and your orcharding. It is a fact that the pig 

 can turn the waste products of the farm to better account than 

 can any other animal. It is also a fact that the pig can make 

 more than twice as many pounds of meat out of a bushel of 

 grain as any other animal, and as a rule his products sell side 

 by side, as far as prices are concerned, with those of the cow 

 or the steer. 



I think I will tell you why I began raising pigs in the West. 

 Thirty years ago Minnesota was one vast wheat field. Raising 

 wheat was the chief occupation, but in 1877-8 wheat failed with 

 us. We had to turn our attention to something else, and 

 unfortunately, or as I think now, fortunately, that year of failure 

 was my first year on the farm for myself. I sowed my whole 

 farm to wheat, and raised nothing that I could sell. We thought 

 then, as we had been raising wheat every year and had made it a 

 success, that wheat would come back, but year by year wheat 

 fell off and stock raising had to substitute our wheat farming. 

 I had run in debt for the farm which I had bought and was 

 not able to keep up the interest by growing grain, so I looked 

 around to see what branch of the live stock industry I could 

 follow and make it profitable, in other words, in what way I 

 could pay for my farm.' I did not think I had acreage enough 

 to raise as many animals as I wanted in order to make a success, 

 as my farm was small, so I sold it and bought a larger farm, 



