560 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



however, in addition to the soy-bean hay, corn stover, and sheaf oats or 

 oat straw produced on the farm. Last year 450 bushels of seed corn were 

 sold at an average price of $1.82 per bushel. The remainder of the crop 

 Is fed, any deficiency being made up by purchase. 



This system has been in vogue without essential change for ten years. 

 Adjacent land, poorly managed, produces probably 35 bushels of corn per 

 acre. During the past four years the average yield of corn on this farm 

 has been 80 2-5 bushels per acre. During the past few years oats have 

 lodged more or less, and Mr. Rowe is seeking a substitute for this crop.a 



The yield of oats this year was 50 bushels per acre. On another simi- 

 lar farm owned by Mr. Rowe the yield was 63 bushels. The oats on the 

 home farm were pastured to some extent this spring, because of a partial 

 failure of the clover pastures. No commercial fertilizers have been used 

 until this year, when a carload of ground phosphate rock was bought. It 

 would seem that the system of cropping and the use made of these crops 

 have so added to the nitrogen content of the soil as to render the plant 

 food supply somewhat unbalanced for oats, though not for corn, as the 

 corn crop can utilize the nitrogen to better advantage than oats. 



The 80 acres are divided into 4 equal fields, all fenced hog tight. The 

 fences consist of 5-foot woven wire, with a barbed-wire above it around 

 part of the farm. The 4 fields meet at the center of the farm, where 

 there is a well, a small feed yard for use in winter, and a shed for storing 

 feeding troughs, etc., in summer. The feed yard is partially floored so 

 that the hogs may eat without standing in mud during unfavorable 

 weather in winter. 



In addition to the 80 acres in the rotation, there are 31 acres of 

 timber, 10 acres of permanent bluegrass sod (for 5 horses, 2 cows, and 

 the brood sows in winter), and 10 acres devoted to orchard, garden, 

 yards, and barn lot, making 131 acres in all. 



Fifteen brood sows are kept. These are well-bred Duroc-Jerseys, a 

 breed especially adapted to the production of large, late-maturing hogs. 

 These sows farrow once a year, early in April, or after danger of severe 

 winter weather is past. They raise 8 pigs to the litter on the average. 

 In spring the 20-acre clover field is divided into 2 parts by means of a 

 temporary wire fence 30 inches high. One part contains 12 acres and 

 the other 8. One hundred and twenty yearling hogs, weighing about 200 

 pounds each, are placed in the 12-acre inclosure in early spring and re- 

 main until they are sent to market about August 1 to 10. The 15 sows 

 and 120 pigs are turned into the 8-acre division, where they remain till 

 the large hogs on the 12-acre division are marketed, when they are al- 

 lowed the run of the whole 20 acres. 



At first each sow and her litter receives 3 pounds of corn a day. 

 Sometimes a little oats is substituted for part of the corn. The amount 

 of grain is gradually increased until by fall each sow and litter receives 

 about 17 pounds a day. The sows are allowed to wean the pigs of their 

 own accord. At one side of the field a pen is constructed in such manner 

 as to admit the pigs, but not the sows (fig. 1, B), and the pigs may thus 

 be fed separately so as to insure their getting a proper share of the feed 



o See proposed change In the cropping system, p. 



