264 State board of agriculture. 



studs, joists, rafters, sheating and lining, bespeak of days when these 

 materials were plentiful and so inexpensive that nothing but the choicest 

 was used even in the construction of a piggery. The quality and value 

 of these materials, combined with the necessity for making the best use 

 of the material at hand, were some of the conditions requiring the re- 

 fitting of the old rather than the erection of a new building. In plan- 

 ning and constructing a new building there should be nothing to inter- 

 fere with the development of the most perfectly desirable plans; in re- 

 fitting an old building conditions are sure to arise to thwart the ex- 

 ecution of desired plans or changes. It is also possible to figure very 

 closely on the cost of erecting a new building while estimates on recon- 

 struction, or refitting, seldom fail to fall short owing largely to the 

 inability to determine exactly what material must be replaced, par- 

 ticularly that which is covered up. 



We do not present these plans desiring our readers to accept them as 

 models for the Michigan swine raiser, for the conditions at the College 

 are very different from those surrounding the average breeder or pork 

 producer. While few private individuals keep more than one breed of 

 hogs, the College is maintaining no less than seven distinct breeds for 

 a double purpose. The primary object in keeping so many breeds is to 

 furnish plenty of good specimens to give our students an opportunity 

 to study, in the most practical way, the breed type and characteristics of 

 each breed; the secondary object is to furnish stocks of desirable 

 types for experimental breeding and feeding purposes. The num- 

 ber of breeds enumerated, requiring the maintenance of several boars, 

 and the numerous lots of experimental and breeding pigs, demands a 

 structure with a large number of pens. The plan of the remodeled 

 building and added equipment are therefore presented, not as models, 

 but with the hope that here and there suggestions of value may be 

 thrown out. 



During the past few years there has been a marked increase in the 

 advocacy and use of cots for sheltering swine during the entire year. 

 On first thought our plans may seem to oppose this method but such 

 is not the case. We are using all the pens in this building and also 

 a dozen cots in yards during the entire year, the former for boars, young 

 pigs and experimental feeders and the latter for brood sows and young 

 animals being grown for breeders. Both methods have their merits and 

 demerits, but we are becomming convinced that under Michigan con- 

 ditions, with our rigorous winters, a combination of piggery and cots 

 is more desirable for the swine grower than either alone. 



The ground plan in Fig. 39 shows the form of the original building 

 34x80 feet, consisting of a main structure 24x80 feet with a lean-to 

 10x80 feet on the south side. Originally this building was fitted with 

 a passageway 8 feet wide all the way across the north side. The re- 

 mainder of the enclosed space was divided into ten pens of various widths 

 extending from the passage way on the north to the south wall of the 

 building. These long narrow divisions were divided in the center form- 

 ing inner and outer pens; the former were used for feeding and sleep- 

 ing quarters and the latter as sort of covered sheds. By this arrange- 

 ment with the pens proper running down through the center of the 

 building, there was no possibility of sunlight ever reaching the sleep- 



