196 FARM ANIMALS 



ranging from seventy-five to eighty-two per cent, 

 or more. This is considerably better than either 

 beef or mutton. Hogs are everywhere known to 

 be useful in the transforming into pork of various 

 waste products which are not much eaten by other 

 farm animals. Again hogs are inexpensive animals 

 to buy and the original cost of getting into the bus- 

 iness of raising pork, is, therefore, very small as 

 compared with that of beginning beef production. 

 On acount of the rapid multiplication of these 

 animals, a herd is readily built up from one or two 

 sows and the foundation laid for a profitable pork 

 producing industry. 



At the present time the pork production in the 

 United States is on a very fine basis. The profits 

 to be derived from it have perhaps never been 

 greater and the market at home and abroad is daily 

 increasing. Fifty-six million, five hundred thou- 

 sand hogs are annually slaughtered in the United 

 States and of this number six million, five hundred 

 thousand are exported, for the most part after 

 curing. The average value of the pork carcass 

 is $8.75. It may be added as a curious fact that 

 statistics show that the number of hogs slaughtered 

 annually is one hundred and ten per cent, of the 

 total number kept on hand. This difference is 

 readily explained by the fact that pigs are kept less 

 than one year before slaughtering and the litters are 

 very large. It is possible, therefore, to slaughter 

 each year a larger number than are actually kept 

 over and still maintain a tolerably constant or 

 slightly increasing number of hogs in the whole 

 country. 



While, as already indicated, it is a comparatively 

 inexpensive and simple matter to get started in pork 

 raising it is, nevertheless, true that considerable 



