SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 289 



part of its feed from grass. During the growing period grazing is 

 especially important and conducive to health and profit. A practical 

 and scientific system of feeding should provide for an ample supply of 

 succulent pasture grasses and forage crops for hogs throughout the 

 spring and summer and autumn months. Combined w^ith this the system 

 of management should enforce exercise. The entire farm, or as much 

 of it as possible, should be fenced for hogs. Three pounds of rape and 

 five pounds of clover seed per acre sown with the small grain corp 

 will afford an abundance of good feed on the stubble fields after har- 

 vest, at a merely nominal cost. The utilization of this feed for graz- 

 ing hogs or sheep often affords more proht chan the crop of grain. 

 As high as |10.00 per acre has been obtained by Iowa farmers from 

 the rape and clover aftermath following a crop of small grain in the 

 manmer indicated. Western lambs or yearlings can be finished for 

 market by this method without grain. This crop is equally valuable 

 for nnishing hogs, or growing pigs. 



The old time pigsty should be banished forever. There is no place 

 for it on the modern farm. It has given the hog his reputation for 

 filth. They are breeders of disease. 



Even the permanent or central hog barn is of questionable value. 

 The same money invested in movable hog houses and hog fences about 

 the fields, will give much better returns for all purposes, except for 

 fattening hogs, and farrowing sows, and the larger buildings are not 

 necessary even for fattening. The movable houses permit the brood 

 sows and pigs to be moved out into the ideal surroundings afforded 

 by a clean pasture or a clover or alfalfa lot. They make it possible 

 to distribute the hogs over the farm in clean, fresh quarters thereby 

 utilizing grass and forage crops to the largest degree, and at the same 

 time reducing the danger of disease to a minimum. They favor 

 economical production. They promote the health and thrift of the 

 herd and insure greater fecundity and more profitable feeding and 

 more profitable breeding qualities. Thirty-five sows of different breeds 

 on the college farm farrowed three hundred and twelve pigs during 

 the present season and raised two hundred and eighty to weaning time. 

 According to the last census there are 229,000 farms in Iowa. It is 

 a moderate estimate to say that there is on an average an acre of 

 unused feed lots on each farm throughout the State. These lots 

 almost invariably lie idle. Experiments conducted at the experiment 

 stations show that an acre of rape has a feeding value equivalent to 

 the production of five hundred pounds oi pork. If we calculate this for 

 the number of farms in Iowa and rate pork at four cents a pound, we 

 have a product amounting to over $4,500,000 annually that might be 

 realized from idle ground at almost no appreciable expense. An acre 

 of alfalfa is even more valuable than an acre of rape for grazing hogs 

 though it cannot be grown as a catch crop for a single season. On the 

 college farm we sowed some ground adjoining the hog yards to alfalfa 

 last August and I think we have had the best returns from it of any 

 crop we have ever grown for hogs. We expect to largely increase 



