254 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



information to a wider field for buyers who can appreciate and pay for 

 our product. 



The boomer man of mystery, who is he? How shall we know him? 

 I looked for him in the dictionary but did not find him; he is too elusive 

 to be chained down with words, but one of the things he is supposed 

 to do is to boom "to make a hollow sound, roar, cry." I do not know that 

 I can make you understand how to know him for I do not always know 

 him myself, but he is about the opposite of him who measures everything 

 by the pound or tape line, or by the head or dozen. He details mostly 

 those qualities which only judgment can measure and the age, weight, color 

 and often the pedigrees of his pigs are so beautifully indefinite that two 

 buyers at different times could never by comparing notes tell whether they 

 were offered the same thing. They are mere tribles not worth deliver- 

 ing to the buyer. To me the boomer makes a hollow sound when he is 

 setting out the merits of his stock for sale, but he usually has the 

 quintessence of the business "the pure blood" of the greatest individuals 

 of the breed" as a basis for a value which must be above that which under- 

 favorable circumstances (not impossible ones), his animals would show 

 a profit upon. That is a reasonable measure of a price. If the stock 

 sold will show a profit under favorable but not impossible circumstances 

 then it is a legitimate sale if made without fraud and the price states in 

 the usual measures of value. 



Many sales have been properly made to persons who had not the 

 equipment to make use of the purchase under favorable circumstances and 

 have shown a loss. Jealous breeders have made use of it to prove that 

 any price above what they are willing or able to pay is a boom price. 

 Some prices are made with such qualifications to the terms of sale that 

 they can have no comparative value with a complete sale. It is not en- 

 tirely fair to call these boom sales though it seems to me they can have 

 no excuse except to get advertising without paying money for it. The 

 seller and the buyer usually in such sales make the price the leading 

 statement as though it were an excellence of the animal rather than 

 an agreement of the parties. The detriment to come from these sales of 

 "things heard of but not seen' is not only the financial loss to the buyer 

 but the loss of moral strength incident to the sale, which seems either 

 a losing purchase or a mysterious transaction. When a buyer announces 

 an unusual price and the purchase when inspected does not exhibit qual- 

 ities comparative to the price, when the pens, the care, the advertising 

 are not in keeping with such a high-priced animal and the promised 

 exhibit of the sure winner does not materialize it would seem that the 

 purchase had been boomed. 



If anyone has been induced to buy upon the recommendation of that 

 price any of the get or kin of the purchase in question that he would 

 not have bought with a full knowledge of the animal without the price 

 announced or with the true price given then he has probably been victim- 

 ized by the boomer. But the boomer is not always on the selling side; 

 oh no, the buyer wishes to make it appear that he has put forth unusual 

 effort to improve his stock over his fellows and is not able or perhaps 

 willing, to pay the price for whic)i truly good animals are selling. He 

 searches for something whose breeding is from the same sources as the 



