450 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



has been excommunicated by his majesty the pope. And when the law was 

 given the Israelite was commanded to look upon anything as unclean that 

 was cloven at the hoof and that chewed not the cud. And that was the 

 Log. So the hog seemed to be looked upon with disfavor by even his 

 Creator, for Ave have no account of any other created thing being able to 

 take with them into the sea a pack of the devils of the evil one and drown 

 them, teeth and toe nail. Since that time, however, history has shown 

 us there has been considerable of improvement in the hog. We have 

 many different breeds. But history does not carry us back so far in the 

 hog world as in other domestic animals. That is, the time 

 in which man has taken an interest in the breeding of the hog 

 is not of so long duration. But how vast has been the progress! 

 And what has been the main essential in this improvement? Hereditary pre- 

 caution. This, coupled with intelligent mating, good feed and care brings 

 not only reproduction but an improvement in the animal reproduced. 

 Our text would imply that it is harder to bring about improvements than 

 it is to reproduce defects, which I believe you will not question. The 

 mating of ■ animals to bring certain results more often disappoints us 

 than produces what we are seeking. Every intelligent and honest breeder 

 of hogs is very particular in keeping his litters marked so there will 

 be no question of its ancestry. There are but a few families in the different 

 breeds of swine that have been of any particular value in assisting their 

 owners in raising the standard of excellence in the breed; occasionally 

 merit shows up unexpectedly, and from a quarter where we expected a 

 phenomena we get just a common hog. In my opinion, if the breeders, of 

 swine would pork one-half to two-thirds of their crop of pigs each year 

 that is now being sold for breeding purposes, for the next ten years, the 

 advance in the value of the hog as a reliable and scientific reproducer 

 of increased merit would be greatly enhanced. The breeder would get 

 more for his crop of hogs if this were done. Instead of selling pigs for 

 breeding purposes for from $10 to $20 each, he could have $25 to $40. 

 The trouble is. too many hogs are offered for breeding purposes. Cut 

 down the number offered, raise the standard of those sold, sell no man a 

 animal for breeding purposes that you do not consider a good animal, 

 make him pay its value or leave it. The purchaser, on the other hand, 

 whether raising for breeding purposes or pork, had better pay $50 for an 

 animal of merit than to use a poor individual or a scrub that cost him 

 nothing. The time would not be so long in coming then when the breed- 

 ing of the hog would become as close a science as is the breeding of the 

 horse or the beef animal. Every hog breeder knows how easy it is to re- 

 produce the defects in the sire or dam or both. Every breeder also knows 

 that you can take a sire and dam of almost faultless individual merits 

 and produce a litter. He also knows that he is foolish to expect each 

 pig in the litter an equal or improved excellence over the sire and dam. 

 He is almost sure that a part of that litter will show defects that were 

 prominent in some of its ancestry. It may have been some ways back 

 also. Is it not resonable to believe that by porking the defective part 

 of the litter and using only the individuals that are as good or better 

 than the sire and dam that the chances of reproducing defects will be 



