HANDLING HOG CHOLERA IN THE FIELD 181 



ticularly in the corn-belt, is that of purchasing 

 feeding shoats in the fall of the year to consume 

 the season 's crop of grain. The general tendency 

 is for these shoats to be raised in regions where 

 land is rather cheap, and fattened in localities 

 where higher-priced land compels a more inten- 

 sive type of farming. Direct communication be- 

 tween the breeders who raise the shoats and the 

 feeders who finish them is not generally main- 

 tained. The breeder seeks a seller's market in 

 cities where there are large stockyards, and the 

 feeder habitually goes to these places to buy. Be- 

 fore the discovery of anti-hog-cholera serum, long 

 years of bitter experience had taught feeders that 

 hogs which pass through large public stockyards 

 very often contract cholera. As soon as the serum 

 was discovered it was eagerly seized on in at- 

 tempts to protect stockyard shoats that subse- 

 quently were to be shipped to other farms to be 

 fattened. The desire was to give these animals 

 permanent immunity to hog cholera, so it grew to 

 be a general practice to administer simultaneous 

 treatment to them in the yards, and ship them in 

 the course of a few days to the feeder's farm. 

 Years of experience prove that this practice, 

 though perhaps an improvement over old meth- 

 ods, is frequently the cause of heavy losses, both 

 in the immediate animals treated and in hogs 



