LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 28? 



"large size. They are dark in color, usually black, with small, white, promis- 

 cuous spots. They usually have some white in the face and about the legs and 

 feet. They have long bodies, short necks, heavy jowls, short legs well spread, 

 broad, straight backs, deep sides with square, heavy shoulders, broad, deep 

 hams, frequently the meat overlying the lock joints; ears thin and soft, droop- 

 ing at the point. They have no flabby, flank meat, but are thick in front of 

 ham, and have but very little offal when fat. They are strong and hardy in 

 constitution, and finally they will make more pounds of pork for a bushel of 

 corn than any other breed of hogs in America. 



HOGS, AND HOW TO HANDLE THEM. 



BY B. G. BTJELL. 

 [Read at Galesburg Institute.] 



Let US look at this question in its practical bearings. Let us examine it in 

 a money point of view, a point in which farmers are more generally interested 

 than in any other of its aspects; for where a farmer's money is, or where he 

 sees a prospect for acquiring money, in that direction will he use his best 

 efforts. 



The field open to the American farmer is a wide one, and look whichever 

 way we may, we will find it occupied by active, pushing, and energetic men, 

 each one striving to fill the demands in his particular line of production in a 

 better manner or at a cheaper rate than his competitor. Hence the diversity 

 of agricultural products; and yet a sameness of products in particular sections, 

 as winter wheat raising in Michigan, corn growing in Illinois, spring wheat 

 growing in Dakota, etc., and still in other parts pasturage for exclusively wool 

 and beef production. 



All these special departments of farming are well enough for a time in a 

 country so extensive and diversified as this; but the continual growing of one 

 kind of grain or crop will exhaust the elements in the soil required for that 

 particular crop and make its growth unprofitable; and are we not admonished 

 by our frequent light crops and partial failures of wheat in this portion of 

 Michigan that it is about time for us to change, or at least make a partial 

 change, in our systems of farming? I believe it is for our true interest to 

 raise less acres of wheat and produce more and a better quality of live stock ; 

 and as the transition from grain raising or wheat raising can be more easily 

 made at least in part by hogs than by cattle or sheep, I would recommend 

 that class of live stock to experiment with, and for the following reasons : 



First, It will cost less money for first purchase of stock ; 



Second, It may be more safely done by those not accustomed to their care 

 than can improved breeds of cattle or sheep; 



Third, The stock can be much more readily increased or diminished as the 

 prospects appear for a high or low market price ; 



Fourth, The market for hog products is more extended than any other meat 

 product, and subject to as little fluctuation as any. 



There is no department of the live stock question that presents a wider field 

 for investigation or promises more remunerative returns. If you take into coa- 



