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IVe Always Made 

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Frank Hubert Is The Second Largest Hog Producer In McLean 



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/^/^T'VE always followed what the 



••_jFarm Bureau suggested and I've 



always made good by it." 



That's what Frank R. Hubert of 

 Cheney Grove township, McLean coun- 

 ty, said when we stopped in to see his 

 fine lot ef Chester Whites not long ago. 

 Frank is not only a Farm Bureau mem- 

 ber but he's a booster too, the kind 

 of fellow who is always ready to give 

 his organization credit for the good it 

 has done. 



We called on Hubert mainly because 

 he's made an outstanding success, as 

 many others have done, of the swine 

 sanitation system recommended by 

 the Farm Bureau and the University 

 of Illinois College of Agriculture. We 

 saw on the 325 acres Hubert is oper- 

 ating not only the second largest hog 

 farm in McLean county — and probably 

 in the state — ^but also a beautiful dem- 

 onstration of soil and crop improve- 

 ment through the use of limestone, 

 sweet clover, and alfalfa on run down 

 land. 



To begin with, Frank breeds an- 

 nually aroimd 120 big typed, strong- 

 backed Chester White sows. This is 

 something of a record in itself. And 

 he likes his job. "I'd rather do this 

 than be cooped up in an office in 

 town," he says. You feel that he means 

 it. 



He has a pig base in the corn-hog 



program of 878 hogs. His allotment 

 last year with a 25 per cent reduction 

 was 652. Having sold his 1932 hog 

 crop for from $2.50 to $3.50 a hun- 

 dred, he naturally is enthusiastic about 

 the benefits the corn-hog program 

 brought him. He will tell you it was 

 all made possible by the long struggle 

 of organized farmers for surplus con- 

 trol legislation. 



"The trouble with the fault finders 

 and the people who kick about this, 

 that, and the other thing connected 

 with the crop adjustment programs, is 

 that they forget," said Frank. "They 

 don't stop to think how much worse 

 off they were before the AAA came 

 along to help them. They give all 

 kinds of reasons for the raise in the 

 price level. I know what it's done for 

 me. My farm account book tells the 

 story." 



When we learned that a McLean 

 county farmer had been successfully 

 raising around a thousand pigs a year, 

 we naturally expected to see a lot of 

 sunlit hog houses, feeding floors, and 

 other equipment. When we asked Hu- 

 bert, on our arrival, where the sows 

 farrowed, he pointed to a couple of 

 small unpainted shacks resembling 

 baby chick brooders, either of which 

 could be built for $50 to $100. 



"We have six pens in the small one 

 with a hard coal brooder stove in the 



HE POINTED TO A SMALL SHACK RESEMBLING A BABY CHICK BROODER, 

 where most of the early spring tows ferrow. 



HERE'S 



FRANK HUBERT AND PART OF HIS 120 

 rugged Chester White Sows. 



middle," said Hubert. "The other house 

 has seven pens. That's all the equip- 

 ment we use except 15 small colony 

 houses out in the alfalfa pasture. 



"We scrape and scrub the pens with 

 lye before the sows farrow," he said. 

 "The pigs creep under the brooder in 

 cold wrather without any prompting. 

 In a couple of days they can f"»*. 

 along outdoors in the A houses. Th° 

 'prng pips come usually in Feb- 

 ruary and March. As soon as the little 

 ones are a few days old we castrate, 

 the boars and move them with their 

 mothers to the individual houses in 

 the field. By cutting the pigs at this 

 age we avoid an extra handling." 



The pigs are all vaccinated >vith 

 Farm Bureau serum at about five 

 weeks of age. Hubert finds that his 

 early fall pigs do well on rape pasture 

 sown in the oats. Good pasture is his 

 long suit. The pastures are rotated to 

 kill worm eggs and other parasites. 

 The spring pigs go to market at around 

 200 pounds when six to seven months 

 old. The fall pigs are fed a little 

 longer to weigh 230 to 260 lbs. when 

 the corn-hog ratio is right. He didn't 

 have many spring p'gs this year be- 

 cause old corn ■was too high to buy. 



A simple ration of ear com fed on 

 dry ground, tankage in self-feeders, 

 and alfalfa, rape or other pasture puts 

 on the weight. 



Hubert selects his brood sows care- 

 fully. "There are good and bad types 

 in all breeds," he says. "The so'ws 

 with small litters go to the fattening 

 pens. The good mothers with larger 

 litters are kept." Sows which have 

 farrowed so far this summer averaged 

 10 pigs to the litter. About seven pigs 

 (Continued an page 23) 



AUGUST, 1935 



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