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Missouri Agricultural Report. 



with his herd. The same principle holds true with the sow. The 

 tendency is to discard the aged sow, because of her rough, unkempt 

 appearance, for neat, trim gilts. Let us not be too ready to discard 

 a sow that we know to be a strong, regular breeder, having large 

 litters, for one that is yet untried, but keep her so long as she pro- 

 duces regularly large litters of strong, healthy pigs that approach 

 somewhere near our ideal. The Wisconsin Station found that there 

 is a fairly constant relaton between the weight and number of pigs 

 in a litter to the weight of the sows. They also found that the 

 number of pigs, weight of litters, and average weight of pigs in- 

 creased as the sows were advanced in age. With stronger, more 

 vigorous pigs at birth more rapid and more economical gains can 

 reasonably be expected. 



As to whether purebreds, grades or scrubs shall be grown 

 rests largely with the aesthetic tastes of the producer. Crossbreds 

 and scrubs may make as economical gains as high grades or pure- 

 breds, but as yet it has not been conclusively proven that they will 

 make any more or any less rapid gains. But this is known that the 

 hogs that command the highest price on the market are those that 

 have the conformation of the purebreds, and that uniformity that 

 is only present with high grades or purebreds. There is nothing 



Fig. 1. Missouri Experiment Station hog house. 



