3 36 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



herd as producers. Can we trace our pigs back and see if this pig's 

 dam or that pig's dam was a good mother? It is very essential to the 

 tenant farmer if he is going to raise hogs at all to know something 

 about the history of the pigs he buys along this line. 



In the discussion that followed Mr. Mills' paper, W. Z. Swallow called 

 attention to the fact that the picking of brood sows is one of the main 

 things in the herd. Good mothers and good milkers will raise good 

 litters, and if you keep it up you will improve your herd right along. 



Mr. E. C. Stone, of Peoria, 111., disagreed with Mr. Mills about renters 

 not keeping pure-bred hogs: Moving, he thought was not a menace to 

 the fellow in the pure-bred hog business. The farmer who is renting 

 the land is the man who should be in the pure-bred hog business. The 

 man who owns the farm and has the money to keep him going can have 

 the cattle and the horses and the sheep, but the hog business always 

 pays. Whenever the tenant farmer has a pig on the farm he has money. 

 It Is the only animal that you don't have to hunt the buyer for. The 

 pure-bred takes no more feed, care or shelter than the grade hog if he 

 is the right kind. 



Mr. R. W. Halford, Manning, Iowa, gave some first-liand ex- 

 perience in his comments on Mr. Mills' paper and among other 

 things said : 



This spring I went on a farm where there was practically nothing 

 except the farm — no hog house or anything but fence for cows. I drove 

 out about forty head of pure-bred Poland Chinas and got the man to 

 allow me to put up some fence. Then I made some individual hog 

 houses and constructed shade out of some old boards and I have hogs 

 of all sizes and they are doing just as well as when I had them on $1.50 

 land and a $500 house to put them in. You can raise them just as well 

 as you can on a farm where you have spent several thousand dollars 

 fixing up houses, etc., to raise them in. 



Others who discussed Mr. Mills' paper were Silas Igo, R.. J. 

 Harding and 0. W. Browning. 



EQUIPMENT OF HOG FARMS. 



This subject was taken up by George T. "White, of Dallas Cen- 

 ter, Iowa, who in part said : 



While I was raised with hogs I never raised any pure-bred hogs until 

 a few years ago. Some of the things I have to say will conflict with 

 some things that have been said. Not very long ago I read an advertise- 

 ment of a book on swine raising, so I bought it and read it and there 

 was actually only one new idea in it and that one idea I don't believe. 

 When we speak about equipment we usually think of buildings first. 

 My idea of equipment for raising pure-bred swine is that you must have 

 something warm and comfortable because you must have your pigs 

 come on early in the spring. May and June pigs won't make a success 

 because farmers want bigger pigs in the fall. 



