PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT ME^T PRODUCERS' ASSN. 473 



to have them top the market. That is, feeding them out to the last 

 degree of finish is not as essential in hogs under the marketing condi- 

 tions which we have now and which we are likely to have in the future, 

 and with the supplements for lard that we have, as it has been in the past. 

 So that a large part of the pork product made upon the farms can be 

 made from forage crops, and if we were to just adopt this policy as a 

 uniform policy of even putting the feeding lots that are idle and growing 

 up to weeds in the summer on a great many farms, in fact, the majority 

 of them — if we would even put them into rape and have a few acres of 

 rape grown there and turn the hogs into it, especially the pigs at weaning 

 time, we would have thereby an immense saving. That land is the land 

 that will produce an abundant crop of rape, which would be fed off, and 

 the land will be available for use again. And then if a few acres of clover 

 and alfalfa pasture can be available so that the hogs can be put on that 

 and make a good part of their gains from that, it will be cheaper gains 

 than are made from corn; and this alone amounts to a saving that will 

 run into millions of dollars a year. 



Then one of the more recent lines of work we have been engaged in 

 at Ames, and having a very direct and vital connection with profitable 

 reproduction on the farm, is that of minerals for swine. It is found that 

 swine make very great gains and there is a wide degree of variation in 

 the gains made by swine. Sometimes we are not able to account for it. 

 Our hogs are not always thrifty, not always making the gains that we 

 know should be made, and it is attributed to something essential that is 

 lacking. Investigations show that minerals in the hog's system are very 

 important factors, and we have tried a good many different mixtures and 

 kinds of minerals. 



The feeding of these minerals has given increased gains at relatively 

 small cost, not only in fattening swine, but with brood sows and growing 

 pigs; so that unquestionably the supplying of minerals to the extent of 

 meeting the hog's need in the ration is one of the fundamental factors in 

 getting the best results. 



Now we have tried a good many, but we have come to the conclusion 

 that it is unnecessary to have a complicated combination of mixtures, or 

 a wide or expensive variety. We have found one of the best to be as 

 follows: Salt, 20 parts in 100, and then limestone, wood ashes or air- 

 slacked lime — either one of these — for the next 40 parts; that is, the 

 limestone to be finely ground limestone in the form to be utilized when 

 the hog consumes it, and then bone — bone meal or spent bone black or 

 bone ash, any one of these — for the next 40 parts; the total of these mak- 

 ing 100 parts. 



Those are not expensive products, and the farmer can buy them and 

 put them together, or you can purchase them from someone who has put 

 them together, and you need not pay the extravagant prices that they 

 ivould charge for the so-called commercial feeds or condition powders or 

 proprietary remedies, or whatever they may call them, that are being 

 sold on the market. A good many times these products are being sold 

 on the market that will contain about these ingredients, probably never 

 give any better results than these, and they will be sold at ten times what 

 it would cost the farmer to buy them and put them together himself. 



