458 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Britian and Denmark have demonstrated that corn judiciously used in 

 combination with other feeds to the extent of one-third or one-half thp 

 ration is not necessary injurious to the quality of the bacon produced, 

 provided other conditions are right, and we are already producing some 

 of the finest bacon products in the United States that can be found in 

 any country, a large part of which finds its way abroad in the pickled 

 or mild cured form and eventually reaches the consumer in Great 

 Britian bearing the celebrated brand of Irish cured or Wiltshire bacon. 

 The entire trend and effort of the American swine grower for about half 

 a century has been in the direction of producing the broadest backed, 

 thickest, fattest hog that science, skill and human ingenuity could evolve. 

 This process set in and continued during the greater part of its progress 

 under conditions of high priced lard when fat backs were a prime quota- 

 tion in all of our leading markets. The tendency of late has been in a 

 different direction. Cottonseed products and other substitutes have 

 largely displaced lard and the tendency of the consumer, both at home 

 and abroad, is decidedly in favor of leaner meat products of all kinds. 



ESSENTIALS IN HIGH CLASS PORK. 



The 1,800-pound bullock and 200-pound wether have disappeared 

 from our markets and the overfattened hog, with his extreme weight and 

 waste, no longer wanted. Theer are also many considerations besides 

 the proportion of fat and lean. The tendency to push our hogs to early 

 maturity by extreme forcing and selection for the form, giving excessive 

 obesity, has also a tendency to softer tissues and a more flabby-sided 

 carcass than can be combined with superior quality of the finished 

 product. Fine grain, firmness of texture and a comparatively even dis- 

 tribution of fat and lean are the prime essentials in high-class pork 

 products. These are the result, first, of hereditary and, second, of judi- 

 cious feeding of wholesome, flesh-forming feed products, succulent feeds, 

 grass and abundant exercise. 



It is not to be expected that our country will in the near future, if 

 ever, take rank with Denmark and Canada in the competition 

 for the higher grades of bacon on the foreign markets, .but the demand 

 for better pork products of our home and foreign markets has already 

 manifested itself in such a way as to command the attention of the farmer 

 and producer. The change will undoubtedly come as a result of the 

 modification of the type of our present popular breeds rather than through 

 supplanting them with foreign breeds of the bacon type, although there 

 is already a rapidly growing demand for hogs of greater activity, vitality 

 and vigor and more prolific breeding qualities and a firm of packers in this 

 state has recently imported several hundred head of an English 

 bacon type and distributed it among their customers for breeding stock. 

 Some of these foreign breeds, however, are not altogether adapted to 

 Iowa conditions. It has been found that the Yorkshires, except as they 

 are carefully selected, have too light a coat to withstand the summer 

 suns and the intensity of our winter climate with the ordinary care 

 given on the average Iowa farm. There is no question but what these 

 breeds produce large litters. Three Tamworth sows on the college farm. 



