SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VIII 



485 



Map No. 2 



Sioux county, the heaviest loser in 1913, was the chief sufferer again 

 last year, losing 13,587 head out of 235,258. At that it is a marvelous 

 gain over conditions that obtained in 1913 when cholera claimed 132,101 

 victims out of 170,141 head owned in the county. The total number 

 lost in the state last year was 246,430, against 2,709,876 claimed by cholera 

 in 1913, which is more than most states produce in a single year. 



The figures presented are the most accurate obtainable, as they are 

 furnished by the county auditors of the state, made up from the as- 

 sessors' returns and compiled expressly for the Iowa Department of 

 Agriculture. They furnish ample grounds for the belief that, with 

 anything like perfect co-operation between veterinary authorities and 

 the swine breeders of the state, hog cholera may in time be robbed 

 of its terrors, just as smallpox has been rendered fairly innocuous, 

 compared to its malignant nature of a generation or two ago. 



It illustrates, too, the wonderful recuperative qualities of the swine- 

 breeding industry in Iowa, and furnishes abundant food for thought 

 in connection with the nation-wide movement to increase the food 

 supply of the country. It would seem that, with the proper amount 

 of effort, the pork-barrel route would bring wonderful results in a 

 comparatively short time. The reader will please take that pork 

 barrel literally, and not in the sense that the term, "pork barrel" is 

 used in the city of Washington and other political roosts. 



Take Sioux county, for example. In 1913 the county was swept al- 

 most bare of hogs, having but 47,000 head left out of 170,141. And 

 yet in three years we find the same county reporting 235,258 head, 

 and comparatively free from cholera at that. Think of the immense 

 task of disinfecting and cleaning up an entire county and coming back 



