SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 653 



Afler having bought your male much, we think, depends upon his 

 care and feeding, for the future good of your herd. He should have a 

 good yard, if possible, where he can have plenty of room to exercise, and 

 should be fed, not for the market, but just kept in good thrifty condition 

 and not allowed to get too fat. 



Another thing I would like to mention is, if you have a good class oC 

 hogs of some particular breed and are thinking of crossing with some 

 other breed, don't do it. Select some breed you like and stick to it even 

 though some one might try to persuade you to make a change. I recall 

 a time a number of years ago, a friend of my father's, an old gentleman, 

 visited us, and as he was a farmer and quite a stock man our talk natur- 

 ally ran along those lines. He said to me "I have been crossing my hogs 

 for the last year or two and I believe it is the thing to do. I am cross- 

 ing back and forth between the Poland China and the Chester White," 

 and he thought he got more pigs and stronger ones. So I thought if 

 he could make money that way I could. I had a very good lot of Poland 

 China sows so I bought a good Chester "White male and thought I would 

 try his scheme. My first crop of pigs were fine and I thought I had 

 struck the right thing in the hog business. They were uniform in size 

 and color (all white) and I swelled up like a toad and concluded I would 

 show the neighbors how to raise hogs (and I did). I continued to cross 

 back and forth between the Poland China and Chester Whites for three 

 or four years, and at the end of that time I could show you most any 

 kind of a colored or sized hog you wanted to see. So you see that my 

 experience was that the longer you keep cross-breeding the less uniform 

 your hogs will be. As far as the color was concerned that didn't amount 

 to much, but when it came to having them all sizes, from nice, large, 

 strong pigs down to the size of half grown rats, I concluded I could do 

 better with one breed. So again we say select the breed you like and 

 stick to it. 



Another thing, we do not believe it is a good idea to get to thinking 

 that some particular breed is proof against all kinds of disease, and 

 that it is not necessary to take any precautions along that line. A 

 number of years ago, when the red hog first came into my part of the 

 country, a man saiid to me "Get re dhogs, they are always healthy, have 

 lots of pigs and are never troubled with disease." But all the same, 

 one of the worst experiences with hog diseases we even had in our herd 

 was brought there by a hog covered with red hair. In our opinion it 

 does not matter so much about the breed as it does their surroundings, 

 and the way they are fed. 



We believe, to make hogs profitable they should have plenty of range, 

 good, clean sleeping places, and above all plenty of good pure water. 

 Too many times our hogs are not as well supplied with water as they 

 should be. 



As to feeding, we people of the corn belt must depend principally on 

 corn, but I believe a great many times it would pay to feed less corn and 

 feed something else with it to balance up the ration. Corn has too much 

 fat producing qualitiy and not enough bone and muscle making. The 



