Swine Groicers' Session. 81 



Professor Miller, while in our county during our institute, 

 wrote me from Trenton asking me a series of questions on hogs and 

 alfalfa. These questions were well chosen and covered about the 

 entire field, and I will discuss them with you at this time. One of 

 the questions is: "About what have you done financially with al- 

 falfa and hogs?" I began raising alfalfa after having read up on 

 what was being done in Kansas in this line. One would infer from 

 Prof. Miller's question that he thought I had made some money. 

 He perhaps got the idea at Trenton. I went to a real estate office 

 in Trenton a few years ago and asked for a loan and mortgaged my 

 farm. A few years later I went back to the same office and stated 

 that I wanted to loan some money. They asked how the change 

 had come about. It came about with alfalfa and hogs, gentlemen. 

 That's how I did it. That's how I reversed matters and had money 

 to loan after having been $2,700 in debt. 



I will talk on the last part of my subject first, that will be 

 hogs. Prof. Miller asked me, "How do you handle pigs the first 

 two months?" "How do you handle brood sows through the year?" 

 "What length of time do you feed corn before marketing hogs, and 

 about how much?" "How many hogs do you feed from an acre 

 of alfalfa?" Now, I read everything I can get hold of on these 

 subjects and then proceed along the line I think best. The question 

 of how to select the brood sow is one of vital importance if you are 

 going to make money, because in order to raise a hog you- must 

 first get a pig, and you must either buy it or raise its mother. I 

 would say, to select a brood sow, go back a few generations, noting 

 facts closely ; that is to say, a long line of breeding is necessary to 

 get an ideal brood sow. Fourteen years ago I passed from the 

 Poland-China breed to the Duroc-Jersey. I liked the Poland-Chinas. 

 I had stock from good breeders and I like Poland-Chinas fine. I 

 have nothing against them. Fourteen years ago I went out of the 

 one breed into the other with the view of increasing the number 

 of hogs per brood sow. That was the only thing I had in view. I 

 sent to a breeder in 1893 and bought two gilts that farrowed in 

 March, and I have never bought another brood sow away from 

 home. I proceeded this way : I would take a sow that was a good 

 mother, fairly well made, and that brought a large litter of pigs, 

 and from her progeny select the best of her sow pigs, and so on 

 down through a series of years until I reached such a point of 

 prolificness in my brood sows that I did not have to pay any more 

 attention to that. I would take any brood sow that would, in my 



A-G 



