TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 339 



BROADENING THE MARKET FOR OUR PORK PRODUCTS. 



Mr. W. J. Crow, of Webb, Iowa, had prepared a paper on the 

 subject, "Broadening- the Markets for our Pork Products," which 

 was read by the secretary, Mr. Crow being prevented from at- 

 tending the meeting' on account of illness. Among- other things 

 he said: 



The first question is what to do or what should be done, taking into 

 consideration the cost of production. Whatever is done should be done 

 at a profit to the raiser, as he is the man who brings into existence a 

 necessity of life, and he should be considered the first profit sharer. 

 Without this, our industry would be a failure. If we went to the 

 butcher shop to buy a piece of pork loin and the butcher would cut us 

 off a piece nine-tenths solid fat and one-tenth lean, and we had to buy it 

 this way if we bought at all, would we not soon turn to some other 

 animal that did not carry as large a percentage of fat for our main 

 meat diet? Taking this for granted as being true, we are confronted 

 today with the problem of furnishing the meat-eating public with the 

 kind of meat that they most relish. This increases the amount consumed 

 by stimulating the taste for the product. We must bear in mind that 

 the hog has to compete with all otlier meat animals. How can this 

 carcass be improved upon so as to increase the percentage of palatable 

 meat? Right here is where we should get our shoulders to the wheel, 

 use our brains together and success is bound to follow our efforts. 



Growth is flesh. Fat is finish. Breed and feed for growth, shorten 

 the fattening period, then we would be able to show a profit on the last 

 100 pounds of weight added to the carcass, equal to or in excess of the 

 former 100 pounds, and when the packer dresses out the animal he will 

 have a greater percentage of meat to sell over the percentage of lard. 

 Lard is bound to be cheap, as petroleum, today, is the standard of our 

 lubricants. The great cry for early maturity has been overdone or has 

 misled us. It has developed for us today a piece of lard, instead of a 

 piece of palatable meat. This is the early maturity of fat or finish. On 

 the other hand, I do not believe *hat we can overdo the early maturity 

 of growth or flesh. This means the strengthening of every organ in 

 the animal, keeping the absorbing capacity of the bowels and stomach 

 at its best, thus improving by getting more strength out of the feed 

 consumed, for when fat contracts the intestines it lessens the power of 

 the animal to get out of its feed all that it should get out of it. This 

 means waste. The length of the bowels of a hog is forty-nine feet. It 

 Is just as long in a sucking pig as in a matured hog, so it stands us in 

 nand to develop the size of the organ, making it bigger around, enabling 

 the animal to have greater power to digest the food that it eats. 



We should take more lessons from the dressed carcass; this would 

 give us a better understanding than to take all our lessons from the 

 outside. The outside should only be an index as to the cutting value 

 of the animal and if the inside is properly provided for the outside will 



