584 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



of grain required for 3 00 pounds of gain. Another rather peculiar 

 conclusion drawn from the Utah Experiments was that exercise 

 alone increased the gain 22 per cent, and the amount eaten but 1.5 

 per cent., but decreased the amount required for one pound of gain 

 22 per cent. 



It requires considerable skill and forethought to arrange to have 

 desirable pasture during the greater i)art of the growing season. 

 Assuming that the land devoted to big pasture is fairly fertile, the 

 following plan will perhaps yield satisfactory results under average 

 Pennsj'lvania conditions where alfalfa is not as yet a certain crop: 



The earliest pasture that can be had is rye, and although its food 

 value may not be great, it will serve to tone up the system and in- 

 duce better appetite and faster growth. Hairy vetch, red clover, 

 oats and peas, rape, gem sorghum, soy beans and cow peas may fol- 

 low each other. Climate, soil and other conditions will probably 

 serve to exclude some of the crops. It is quite certain, however, that 

 from this list a rotation may be had that will give anywhere in 

 Pennsylvania a succession of suitable pasture for hogs. Tlie great 

 advantage in supplying such a course of pasture is that many of 

 them supply in a very cheap manner, protein which is added for rapid 

 and economical gains. 



Growing pork in the winter months is a little more expensive than 

 it is in the summer season. However, we have never had pigs do 

 better than during the winter in open feed lots with Lovejoy houses 

 for shelter. In winter as in summer the ration for growing pigs 

 should contain considerable protein, although not so much is needed 

 in cold weather perhaps as in summer. It has been found that for 

 the most economical gains in pigs the nutritive ratio should be 

 about 1:6.5. Then nutritive ratio of corn is about 1:10. A part of 

 the winter ration can well be composed of alfalfa, or a second growth 

 clover hay cut fine and mixed with meal, or in the case of brood sows 

 be fed from racks. 



In some experiments in Nebraska a ration consisting of 80 per 

 cent, corn meal and 20 per cent, chalfed alfalfa produced as much 

 gain as a ration of 80 per cent, corn meal and 20 per cent, middlings. 

 Sugar beets or mangels fed raw in mild weather and cooked in freez- 

 ing weather can also be used advantageously in winter feeding. 

 Not so much on account of their nurtritive value, as to their value to 

 keep the system in such a condition as to increase assimilation. 



In regard to the difticuUies in growing pork in the East or any- 

 where else they may all be summed up in the one word — sanitation. 



The sanitation of the piggery should be guarded as carefully as 

 the sanitation of a hospital. Damp and illy ventilated sleeping 

 quarters are fatal to pigs and unless the owner will see to it that 

 his hogs always have a dry and well ventilated place to sleep, he 

 had much better kee[) out of the business. Overcrowding is an evil 

 in pig growing that must be guarded against. 



It is my firm belief that at least half, if not more, of the outbreaks 

 of disease are due to overcrowding young shotes. The younger and 

 weaker ones become so unresistant that finally they succumb to the 

 germs of the cholera or swine plague, which I understand are always 

 present even in very healthy pigs. It is simply impossible to crowd 

 young pigs and this point cannot be too strongly emphasized. 



