16 FOEAGE CROPS FOR HOGS IN KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA. 



farther than Pueblo, Leadville, Silverton, and adjoining towns. The 

 Pueblo packers have been using them for a number of years and speak 

 very highly of them. Thus, the field pea has made the hog industry 

 profitable outside of the corn belt. 



soy BEANS. 



The soy bean is used but little as a forage crop by farmers in this 

 section, and the value of this crop is but little appreciated. Soy 

 beans can be planted on a field from which a small grain crop has 

 been removed, and some varieties will make an excellent growth of 

 forage and even mature seed. They will thus furnish pasture for 

 hogs during the latter part of August and September, and the green 

 and ripening beans when harvested by the hogs in this way make 

 an excellent feed. The beans when fed in a ration consisting of one 

 part beans and three to five parts of corn or Kafir corn, as shown by 

 the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, make a very profitable 

 ration for fattening hogs. The saving in the amount of feed nec- 

 essary to make a gain of 100 pounds is from 13.2 to 3T.5 per cent 

 and the increase in gain is from 14.6 to 96.4 per cent. Also, in a 

 feeding test at the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, where 

 soy beans, middlings, and tankage were used as rations with corn, 

 the soy beans proved to be the most valuable adjunct used. As 

 compared to corn fed alone, hogs that received one-third soy beans 

 to two-thirds corn made two and one-fifth times as much gain in the 

 same length of time. The cost per 100 pounds of gain where corn 

 was fed alone was $5.01 against $3.59 where one-third soy beans and 

 two-thirds corn was fed. Hogs so fed look thrifty, have a good appe- 

 tite, fatten rapidly, and have glossy hair like animals fed oil meal. 

 The great value of the soy bean is its power to withstand excessive 

 drought, like Kafir corn, and it will also withstand much wet weather. 

 It is not attacked by chinch bugs and in addition to its great feeding 

 value makes an excellent second crop following wheat or oats to build 

 up run-down or thin soil. Protein is very necessary in a ration for 

 building bone and muscle, as all feeders are coming to know, and the 

 soy bean is exceptionally rich in this. It even stands ahead of alfalfa 

 in this respect. 



GRASSES. 



The grasses are not so good for hog pasture as the crops previously 

 mentioned, but they are used to some extent. Those most commonly 

 grown are Kentucky bluegrass, English bluegrass or meadow fescue, 

 Bermuda grass, and the native wild grasses. 



Kentucky bluegrass is used through Kansas and southern Nebraska. 

 South of Kansas in Oklahoma Bermuda grass is used. 



Ill— IV 



