PART V 



Proceedings of the Winter Meeting of the Iowa Swine 

 Breeders Association, 1914. 



The winter meeting- of the Iowa Swine Breeders' Association 

 was held January 9, 1914, in connection with the annual farmers' 

 short course at the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Me- 

 chanic Arts at Ames, We are indebted to the Iowa Homestead 

 for the following report of the meeting, which report appeared in 

 the Homestead in its issue of January 15th : 



An unusually interesting and important meeting was held by the 

 Iowa Swine Breeders' Association last week at the Iowa Agricultural 

 College. There were those among its members who claimed that this 

 was the best meeting ever held by the association. The program was 

 opened by Prof. John. M. Evvard, who is in charge of swine experi- 

 mental work at the Iowa Station. He presented the result of his work 

 in the feeding of forage crops and corn supplements to swine. Pro- 

 fessor Evvard first pointed out the respects in which corn was deficient 

 as a food for animals and then proceeded to show how this deficiency 

 can best be met. Forage crops, when they can be had, offer the best 

 means of meeting this lack and among these crops rape and alfalfa 

 stand out pre-eminently. In fact, rape is without a peer; it is the best 

 of all forages for swine, feeding value alone considered. It is second 

 to alfalfa only in number of pigs which it can support per acre (twenty- 

 five for rape and forty-three for alfalfa) and in ease of management. 

 In order of general desirability red clover comes next, followed by blue 

 grass and sweet clover. Soy beans and cowpeas may have great virtue 

 when used properly for certain purposes, but can lay no claim to be 

 profitable swine forage crops under Iowa conditions. 



But forage crops alone are insufficient to produce the best results; 

 some concentrated supplement must be fed. The concentrated pro- 

 tein feeds which have won first rank in this series of experiments are 

 oil meal and tankage, or meat meal. Oil meal seems to contain some 

 toxic substance, at least some property which renders it unattractive 

 to hogs when it is fed alone. They neglect it, even ignore it, and fail 

 to consume enough to properly balance their ration when fed in a 

 self feeder by itself. Tankage does not have this disadvantage, and 

 does not require mixing to be fed. 



The ways of the pig are indeed past understanding. The mystery 

 of the digestive economy of a hog is well brought out by some data 



