224 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



think, ho-\vever, that he wanted a pig to weigh two hundred 

 pounds, but it was hard to tell from his letter. In another in- 

 stance a neighbor of mine whom I considered a straight man 

 bought a male pig of me for $18 and took him home. He was a 

 good individual but in the course of time he came back to me and 

 said he M'as no good and I would have to take him back. I told 

 him to bring him back and take a litter brother to him. He was 

 in fine shape and the one he had had gone the other way. He 

 took the second pig home. He had about thirty sows in his heard 

 but he sold the pig. I made inciuiry from the man who bought 

 him and he said he bought him right away and he was to have 

 him as soon as he got him. He had used the first hog and then 

 brought him back as he could get the second one and sell him. 

 There are very few who will do such things but we do have them 

 and we have to guard against it." 



Mr. Keese said: "The reason I spoke of this in the way I did 

 was because very nearly every person in this room knows that 

 the law says if you sell any animal of any kind as a sound ani- 

 mal it must be a sound animal. If you sell a sow in pig, what 

 is my guarantee ? If I sell a sow for $50 and another for $50 and 

 the first may raise ten pigs but the second prove she had no 

 pigs. Then it goes into court. I don't think it is right to guar- 

 antee when every one knows that the law guarantees." 



Following Mr. Cox's paper and its discussion a paper on "The 

 Grass Grown Hog and His Value as a Breeder" was read by ^Ir. 

 Hockett. 



THE GRASS GROWN HOG AND HIS VALUE AS A BREEDER. 



G. W. HOCKETT, MANNING, lA. 



This subject is one of vast importance to the swine breeders of the 

 corn belt. Nowhere in the world is the tendency to refinement so great 

 as here in Iowa and her adjacent states. It goes without saying that 

 there must be some reason for this. 



The hog as our forefathers found him was a wild animal with free 

 range, rambling at will, rooting for herbs and eating what he could find 

 that in his wild nature seemed good, exercising from morn till night. 

 Grain of any kind was unknown to him. But since his captivity, man has 

 forced him to change his habits, to change his diet, and has changed him 

 from the wild, angular rail splitter to the docile beautiful animal of today. 

 This change has been effected in two ways. First, by care in selection of 

 breeding stock, and second, by care in feeding. It has been said "Show 

 pigs, like poets, are born, not made." But in my estimation there is fully 



