188 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF* AGRICULTURE. 



as much cost. Feed your hogs alfalfa during the winter and save your corn 

 and use the corn to better advantage. ': As we progress in the breeding busi- 

 ness we find that we can grow corn that will approximate more and more 

 each year the feeding value. That is, that we will by and by grow corn 

 with about sixteen per cent protein. Alfalfa will produce a hog with more 

 bone, more muscle, more vitality and better able to withstand the hardships 

 of our climate than corn. It is my advice to you, rotate your corn properly, 

 keep land in good condition. You will all be happier because high-priced 

 land has made you better farmers than it has in the past. Land is going to 

 get higher because man is greater than the farm, greater than the animal, 

 and is the biggest thing on the farm. 



We were talking this evening about how to deal with hog cholera on the 

 farm and I do not wish to be misunderstood. If I knew that there was 

 cholera on the farm I would send for the butcher and have him take all of 

 the brood sows with him. He knows when he takes them that if they have 

 cholera he will lose money on it. You save something in caring for the 

 fragments. You decrease the intensity of the disease. It would be possi- 

 ble to entirely throw off the genuine hog cholera if farmers would get rid of 

 hogs in advance. If a breeder, don't sell your stock. My rule was to give 

 notice to all buyers that females are for sale and under this guarantee, that 

 if within thirty days they die they are my hogs and if they do not die they 

 are their hogs and they send the money. I think this policy would help a 

 great deal if carried out and would be no violation of the law. No man 

 wants to sell hogs that have cholera. 



The farther west the richer the alfalfa. And perhaps I should say here 

 that you should have less of the protein contents. Why not have a clover 

 pasture? You ought to have it, too, but you will get your alfalfa quicker 

 and it will put better bone in your hogs. Use it for winter feed and you 

 will be surprised what a nice crop of pigs and fine brood sows you will have. 

 Rape is not as good as alfalfa, but it is good. It can not be grown as 

 quickly. I think it is a splendid good thing. Blue grass pasture is hard to 

 beat. Get a blue grass pasture and run your hogs, but have a few acres for 

 brood sows and small pigs. Alsike is good on wet land, and once in awhile 

 you get a seed crop that is almost as valuable as the land. 



The corn section raises the bacon for the world, but the bacon that brings 

 the highest price in the market you do not raise and you won't raise it with 

 corn. Use alfalfa. Hogs grown in Dakota, Canada and Minnesota will 

 gain a higher price, judging by the tests that are made, than the hog that 

 is raised on corn. An Irishman raises his pigs on what is left of what the 

 children eat, and what is left of the skim milk after the children are through 

 and then he gives him some corn— not very much. But the Irishman does 

 not eat his own pigs. He sells them to the man that has the price and he 

 goes and buys American pork. It is worth more per pound for him than 

 his own. But the man who lives indoors wants the Irish meat that is lean 

 and has not so much fat. We grow the lard for the world and it will be 

 grown as long as we get the cheap corn. We grow the pork for the laboring 

 man. If he has to work hard the fat meat keeps up the energy and muscle 

 and that is what he needs. Pork is sometimes shipped over to Belfast and 

 fixed up for Irish pork, but men who use it say that the Irish bacon is best. 

 1 have to give up that the Danish and Irish bacon is better. 



