ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 365 



twelve hours in water. Extreme early maturity can best be secured 

 by shelling and soaking the corn. A combination of rapid and econom- 

 ical gains can best be secured by feeding dry ear corn until the hogs are 

 close to 200 pounds in weight. For hogs above 200 pounds soaked shelled 

 corn while a trifle slower than soaked corn meal made the most econom- 

 ical gains. In reporting these experiments in bulletin 106 of the Iowa 

 station, Professor Robbins states that to have ground the corn necessary 

 for our 7,908,000 hogs would have cost at least $3,000,000 per year. As 

 the average weight for all hogs sold on the Chicago market for the 

 past five years is but 222 pounds, the bulk of our hogs go to market ere 

 they pass the size at which feeding dry ear corn gives the best results. 



To make the greatest profit out of swine it is necessary to produce 

 gains cheaply. This can best be accomplished by furnishing plenty of 

 forage. We are just beginning to appreciate the value, of the various 

 forage crops. At the Iowa Experiment station we have found that clover 

 is much superior to timothy and blue grass and in our work made a 

 trifle better showing than did alfalfa. 



By comparing results from a check lot of pigs fed corn and meat meal 

 in a dry lot it was found that an acre of clover produced about 750 

 pounds of pork. The feed and pasture per 100 pounds gain costing but 

 $3.50 from the time pigs were weaned until they weighed about 225 

 pounds. There are many crops which may be sown in the spring and 

 make excellent pastures. Some of these are rape; oats, rape and Canada 

 field peas; oats, rape and vetch; and oats, rape and clover. An acre of 

 the last named combination produced 830 pounds of pork exclusive of 

 the pork produced by the feed given. 



In addition to supplying an abundance of green feed during the 

 summer it is a paying proposition to grow soy beans, cow peas, Canada 

 field peas, vetch or rape with corn in a field near the buildings to run 

 the pigs on during the fall. Excepting the rape these crops can best 

 be put in with drill immediately after the corn is checked and thus they 

 will be nearly ripe when the corn is ready to turn into. Gains made by 

 pigs on corn with soy beans or cow peas have been found to be not only 

 much more economical, but a trifle more rapid than those made by 

 pigs in a dry lot fed all the corn and meat meal they would eat. An acre 

 of corn and soy beans produced 619 pounds of pork at a cost of $2.38 per 

 100 pounds while gains made by similar hogs in a dry lot fed corn and 

 tankage cost $3.74 per 100 pounds. 



Iowa farmers are beginning to realize the importance of dairying and 

 that the two classes of stock which make an especially profitable combi- 

 nation are dairy cattle and swine. Skim milk and buttermilk make valu- 

 able supplements to use in conjunction with our corn ration and where 

 pigs run on good forage and receive one of these in conjunction with 

 corn the economical production of pork is assured. 



While absolutely essential to economical production in dry lot feeding, 

 it is not necessary to feed a very large amount of the various sources 

 of protein to pigs, on forage crops which receive skim milk or butter 

 milk. 



