636 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



the fundamental necessities which must he observed by the successful 

 grower of market hogs. The widely varying conditions under which hogs 

 may be successfully produced make it quite impossible that any general 

 rule can be laid down which will insure a profit under all conditions. 

 There are, however, some basic princinles which must be observed by 

 every producer in order to Insure even a moderate degree of success. 

 The practical management of a hog farm demands constant watchfulness, 

 and attention to the minor details of the business is the price of success. 



One of the most successful growers of market hogs in the country lives 

 in northern Illinois, and has been raising market hogs for fifty-three 

 years. This man "say?: "The primary qualification for the successful 

 management of a hog farm is 'hog sense,' and no man should attempt to 

 make a specialty of pig-raising unless he likes hogs." "Luck" may be 

 helpful at times, but "knowing how" will pay dividends regularly. This 

 man raises but one crop of pigs each year from his sows, having found 

 by experience that faH pigs for market purposes cannot be successfully 

 raised or profitably grown in his latitude. During the fifty odd years 

 that this man has been growing hogs in large numbers, and with cholera 

 rampant in his neighborhood many times during that period, his escape 

 from the ravages of disease all those years cannot be attributed wholly 

 to "luck." While m.any growers raise two crops of pigs each year, it 

 must be conceded that in the section of the country lying north of the 

 42d parallel, the profits derived from fall farrowed pigs will be very much 

 below the average profits from spring farrowed- pigs. The record of the 

 annual food production of the hog is incomplete. We have a record of 

 the commercial hog, but the value of the millions that are slaughtered on 

 the farm, together with the kill in the small towns and small packing 

 plants cannot even be approxim-ated. The figures available are interesting 

 and convincing of the vast importance of the yearly pork crop of the 

 country. 



There are a number of states that grow hogs by the million and are 

 not rated as pork-producing states in a commercial sense, and the by- 

 product left on the farm in the shape of manure must be credited to the 

 hog. During the forty-six years that the present Union Stock Yards have 

 been in operation, Chicago has received 275,000,000 hogs. The record of 

 the greatest one-year production of hogs in the United States was in 

 1908. The receipts at thirteen principal markets for that year reached 

 the enormous total of 31,778,717 hogs. This is the best possible statistical 

 demonstration of the immensity of the swine industry. Add to the number 

 received at the above thirteen markets, the millions that were sold at 

 the thousands of smaller markets, and the hogs slaughtered for home 

 consumption on the thousands of farms of the United States and it will 

 be seen that the "humble hog" occupies a most prominent place in the 

 very foundation of our agricultural system, and that as a creator of new 

 wealth, at least in the corn-producing states, the American hog leads the 

 list of domestic animals. Mr. J. Ogden Armour recently said: "Without 

 the contribution of the American hog to the food supply, a semi-famine 

 of meats would be created, and if I were asked to enumerate the great 

 calamities possible to the human race, I would place the extinction of 



