650 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



come in with the hogs. On assuring him I had not he proceded to 

 making cripples. The hogs had traveled a long distance and a few of 

 them were sore and stiff in the joints but not crippled, and refusing to 

 travel in a hurry-up manner would turn (as we say) head on the wrong 

 end. The young man in charge would then jump on their hind quarters 

 and break them down in order that they would be right there when the 

 cart came around for them. I have since learned that cripples do not 

 ;pass through the hands of the commission firm but are disposed of by 

 this yard helper to one of the packers who makes a specialty of handling 

 cripples. The helper reports the sale to the commission firru and receives 

 a fee for his trouble. It is quite apparent that the temptations for mak- 

 ing cripples are very great an'd the matter should be investigated. 



APRIL PIGS FOR JUNE FARROW. 



From breeders' gazette. 



The writer has a neighbor who is something of a politician. Also he 

 is a contractor engaged in various public works. At certain times and 

 seasons he is best known as an implement dealer. Farther he is a farmer 

 and a breeder of pedigreed swine. I recently spent an hour on his farm 

 and I was greatly taken with a lost of some sixty odd spring pigs I 

 isaw. Not only were they large and well grown, but they were fat too. 

 Apparently many of them were of March farrow. Imagine then my sur- 

 prise when I learned that the oldest pigs were of May farrow; that some 

 had come as late as July, and that the average birth date was the first 

 week of June. Coming at this late date of sourse no pigs were lost from 

 cold weather. 



This is how he did it. Sows and pigs had the run of a small pasture. 

 One side was blue grass, the other red clover . At morning and night 

 the nursing sows were fed four ears of corn each. At noon they were 

 given a mixture of ground barley, oats and middlings fed in the form of 

 slop. As soon as the pigs were old enough to eat, they had a separate 

 trough in which they were fed a thick creamy slop made with middlings 

 and water, for along with Mr. Bonham the proprietor was very enthusi- 

 astic over middlings as pig feed. He believed it was fully equal to milk. 

 While they were young the pigs were fed all of this they would eat and 

 the slop was made thick. As the pigs grew larger the slop was made 

 thinner. From the start the pigs were fed some corn, always a little, never 

 much, because the proprietor believed a hog did not need much corn till 

 it was old enough to fatten. They were also fed some oats, first old oats, 

 later sheaf oats. But the main reliance was grass and middlings, together 

 with the milk of the dams. 



Considerable importance was attached to the fact that the pigs were 

 slopped at the same hour every day. "For," said the proprietor,, "every 



