258 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



eight to ten weeks. Best results with rape are obtained where oats and 

 clover are sown with it. Corn that is to be hogged off when mature will 

 feed, when there is an estimated yield of fifty bushels per acre, ten hogs 

 for five weeks or thirty hogs for about two weeks. These estimates 

 should be taken as approximations which may vary greatly under con- 

 ditions governing any situation. 



The low price of grains in past years has resulted in a great many 

 experiments being worked out with numerous combinations of grains ; 

 but conditions are greatly different at the present time. Profitable gains 

 can no longer be made through exclusive grain feeding, but must come 

 through the judicious use of forage crops. With the necessity and de- 

 mands of the swine growers of the State in mind, the IMissouri Experi- 

 ment Station of the University of Missouri has planned a series of 

 forage crop rotations which should throw considerable light on the 

 value of forage crops for hogs and the value of forage crop rotations for 

 the land. The experiments are so planned that all results will relate to 

 the area basis. Since there is no way of measuring the number of 

 pounds of forage that is eaten by a hog on forage, and since all farm- 

 ing operations must finally relate to the area basis, the work is so related 

 as to give the possible results per acre with each forage used. The plan 

 is to secure the average of several years, since the results of any one 

 year cannot be taken as absolute. An average of a series of years should 

 give us the relative values of different forages and the average possible 

 results to be obtained from any forage under Missouri conditions. 



BLUEGRASS. 



There is no forage so extensively and universally used for hogs as 

 is bluegrass, and yet so little is kno'-\\ai as to its true value for swine 

 feeding. Bluegrass or orchard grass will supply green feed as soon as 

 the snow is off, and is among the best for early spring pasture. It 

 should not be pastured too closely by hogs, and it then v/ill furnish 

 abundant nutritious feed until the first of Augast. Under average 

 conditions, bluegrass will support from ten to fourteen shoats, weighing 

 seventy pounds, from May 1st throughout the summer, when supple- 

 mented with a corn ration per day to the extent of 2% to 3 per cent, 

 of the live weight of the hogs ; and with this number of hogs there may 

 be produced about 882 pounds gain per acre. The best results with 

 bluegrass are obtained up to August 1st, after which it becomes too dry 

 for swine feeding purposes. The results at the Missouri Experiment 

 Station show that during the past two years' trial there were no net 

 returns when the results were taken for the whole season, but from the 



