158 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



gain in it anyway. Some fresh meat might be fed clear through the 

 period at intervals without upsetting the hogs and giving them a set- 

 back, but you take my advice, gentlemen, and -burn all your old carcasses. 

 Don't bury them, either, because some day you will be burying some- 

 thing that you can never get rid of, and that will live longer than you 

 will in the soil. 



DISCUSSION. 



A Member : How about this tankage we buy, then ? 



Doctor Gibson: The process of producing tankage should ren- 

 der it aseptic from infection. We have had some reports that 

 would look as if cholera had been caused by tankage, but we have 

 not been able to check that matter up. If such is the case, I am in- 

 clined to think that it was infected with cholera after it was made 

 into tankage. The steam process ought to have'rendered it safe. 



You have heard a good deal of talk in the last few years about 

 our loss of population. I will tell you that there were eighty sets 

 of emigrant papers in my office this morning for approval. If 

 you figure that there are eighty men owning those eighty ship- 

 ments, and that they are heads of families, with five to the family, 

 you have lost 400 citizens today. That is the way they compute 

 school statistics, and you know most of those fellows are thrifty in 

 every way, and they are going to get broader acres for the increas- 

 ing numbers of the family. This is the one state in the Union that 

 could put 400 men in condition to pull up stakes and take with 

 them some live stock and go somewhere to buy a farm. We furnish 

 all the northwestern country with their best citizens, and we fur- 

 nish California with her best millionaires. In the last six months, 

 we lost 4,720 of population, figured on the same basis. But you 

 would be surprised, were you in my position, to see how many are 

 coming back. They write me to "send me a permit to send my 

 stock back to Iowa, and let Doctor So-and-So, at such a town, who 

 used to test my stock, test me when I get there ; I am coming back 

 to good old Iowa; and will be mighty glad to get home." 



A Member: How long after the hog is vaccinated can it be sold 

 for slaughter ? 



Doctor Gibson: That is one thing that I wish Ames had told 

 us. They have an experiment station and a laboratory equipped 

 for experimental work; and the government has its experimental 

 biboratories ; but no man has yet told us Avhen it is safe to ship 

 an immunized hog to market. The more important question is when 

 an immunized boar, for instance, can be shipped out to a customer 



