356 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



A disease which is becoming quite epidemic in Iowa is hemorrhagic 

 septicaemia. It strilves down herds that run upon land that has been 

 overflowed. The veterinary department at Ames has been working 

 upon it, and tliey have vaccine serum that they use upon cattle to im- 

 munize them, and also as a remedy after they have the disease. We 

 have tried it on hogs and have found that apparently it does some 

 good, altho we want to get a better remedy. 



Gentleness is another thing that should be practiced with brood 

 sows. They are more liable to develop a gentle and kindly spirit, and 

 that is important. It is well to keep the brood sows coming always 

 thruout LUe pregnancy period, and to have them in such condition that 

 at breeding time you can make them gain in weight about a week or 

 ten days before you start to breeding them. This insures in large 

 measure that you will settle your sows more quickly, and that they 

 will farrow more p'igs. 



Now we come to feeding — how about that? It has been a great 

 temptation in the corn belt to feed corn alone. You all know what the 

 disastrous effects are. Just for your information, I am going to give 

 you a few results in the feeding of young gilts upon different rations. 



The feeding of corn alone is poor business. Why? There are a 

 number of reasons: 



First — It lacks protein quantity, which really means that there is 

 not enough present. 



Second — It is deficient in protein quality, which, said differently 

 means that corn proteins are not as high-class as they should be. In 

 other words, they lack some of the necessary building-stones which 

 make up the proteins. Proteins are really very complicated in con- 

 struction, and are built up of some eighteen different units. We have 

 various kinds of proteins, such as the casein in milk, which is a very 

 good protein to feed with corn. Why? Because it supplies in Its 

 make-up most of the essential missing amino acids or building-stones 

 of corn. Then there is the protein of corn called zein, which com- 

 prises some 50 per cent of the total proteins. This protein is lacking 

 in tWiO particularly important building-stones, called by the chemist 

 "trytophane" and "lysine." Both of these are essential to growth and 

 well-being. Casein furnishes these. So do some other proteins, like 

 the protein of alfalfa, or the proteins of meat meal, or the proteins of 

 red clover, or rape pasture, or young, tender blue grass, and so on. 



Third — Corn is deficient in mineral nutrients, particularly calcium, 

 which comprises some 40 per cent of the dry ash of bone; also in phos- 

 phorus. We have also found that it is helped by adding common salt 

 to the ration; preferably giving it at free-will. 



Fourth — Corn not only lacks mineral elements in toto, but the pro- 

 portion is not right; hence they have to be re-mixed in order to do 

 best. It so happens that the minerals of milk and the minerals of 

 alfalfa, when added to corn, make up a mixture of mineral elements 

 that is of higher quality than of the corn alone; this is very fortunate. 



Fifth — Corn is, generally speaking, constipating in character when 

 fed alone; hence, by adding the proper kinds of supplements to it, it 

 can be made laxative. Undoubtedly, the bettering of the protein qual- 



