SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 209 



I sold Ideal Black U. S. for a thousand dollars cash, the biggest price 

 I ever got for a hog and the biggest price ever paid in Iowa up to that 

 time. The sale was a thousand dollars' worth of advertising right there. 

 Every pig that we had at the State Fair after we sold this hog for $1,000 

 we sold for $50 just as easy as we had sold them before for $25. I think 

 that on price is where lots of people fall down. If you are offered a good 

 price for a good hog, sell him. A thousand dollars was the highest I 

 ever got. I sold old Black U. S. for $500, a half interest in King Tecumseh 

 II. for $200, and several others for $200. I always sold pretty low at the 

 fairs to get them out before the chance of cholera. I believe in letting 

 the other man make some money, too. That is the way to build up your 

 trade. If I sell a man a male pig and he is not good I send him another 

 in place of it, and the same way with a young sow. It is the only guar- 

 antee I give on low priced hogs. It is just like any other business. You 

 have to do it on a good straight business principle or else you are left. If 

 you have a nice bunch of pigs, say forty or fifty, you are glad to sell 

 them at home for $15 or $20 and make a good profit on them. But you 

 can take them to the Fair and sell them for $20 or $25. Some other fellow 

 will say he won't take less than $40 or $50. He can't sell them for that, 

 so he takes them home, and after he feeds them for three or four months 

 he sells them for $20 or $30. I think it is better to sell at a little lower 

 price and let the other fellow make some money. And i have always found 

 it the best way to look at the prospect of the corn crop, the hog crop, and 

 cholera, and then make up your mind where to start in, and if you are 

 below the other fellow it don't make any difference. Poverty makes a good 

 sale sometimes. We used to have about a hundred pigs every fall. Then 

 we would hitch up to a wagon and attend about four district fairs and 

 peddle the pigs out frcm $10 to $15, and once in a while we got up to 

 $25. That made our sales average about $10 a head clear at five months 

 old, and a hundred pigs made us $1,000. Lots of times I have slept out 

 under the wagon in the rain, but that didn't make any difference — we got 

 there. I have always found it paid to make friends, and to lend a helping 

 hand to anyone In need. My first and best advertising was by showing 

 at the fairs, and it has always been good advertising. In 1S65 I did my 

 first newspaper advertising in what was then the Western Farm Journal 

 (now the Homestead), and have never missed a year in it since. I am 

 a believer in newspaper advertising. I do not favor using large space, 

 but rather a smaller space in the principal farm and live stock papers. 

 When I began there was a good deal of cholera and we had it every year 

 around us. Whenever it came in close we used lots of lime and every- 

 thing that way and would not allow anybody to come into the hog lots 

 from the cholera districts. I think putting hogs on the market and keep- 

 ing the number down keeps cholera off the best way. Let the buyer come, 

 and if he takes all the hogs, all right. Put them all on the market at any 

 price whenever- thew show cholera, if you only get fify cents apiece for 

 them. That is one reason why I like the medium hog that will fatten at 

 any age. You can sell them easier than the big, coarse hog. I started 

 working for $25 a month and aid $125 for my first five pigs. It nearly 

 took my breath away, but I paid it out. I thought it was too much money 

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