152 Singing Valleys 



earned enough on corn and hogs to buy another eighty, and 

 another. His land today is worth $110 to $125 an acre. He owes 

 not a penny and made money every year except 1926 when he 

 was hailed out. Of his four children, two grown sons help work 

 the farm. This fall [1938], he has no hogs which should fetch 

 him about $4,000; sixteen head of cattle worth $2,000, and sixteen 

 lambs worth about $150. He also milks a string of dairy cows. . . . 



Here is a career built on corn and hogs. 



Let us take a look at these creators of national prosperity. 

 Whether the race of the pig is Berkshire, Duroc, Poland China 

 or Mule Foot is a matter of individual taste. All these breeds 

 have their champions. The word is true in both senses. The 

 first three breeds are the aristocracy of pigdom. The Mule 

 Foot is the native hog of Africa. It was the variety generally 

 kept in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland one hundred years 

 ago, and the strain has not been lost. The sows are reputedly 

 quiet mothers who give large litters. The Mule Foot is a good 

 forager and puts on the first two hundred pounds of weight at 

 less cost than do the pedigreed breeds. 



A pig should weigh two hundred pounds at ten months. 

 And those first two hundred pounds should not be made on 

 corn. Pigs can't grow bones and muscles on an all-corn diet, 

 and a pig of small frame can't carry as much fat as a big pig 

 can. Therefore a mixed diet preferably alfalfa pasture and 

 corn is recommended, with proportionately more corn as the 

 pig matures, in order to fatten it. 



All sorts of other pig feeds are used, among them fish-meal, 

 peanut meal; millet and shrunk wheat; cotton seed, whole and 

 pressed; pressed potatoes; cow peas; cow beans; middlings. In 

 the South, when the acorns fall, the pigs are turned out to feed 

 on the mast. Mast-fed pork has something no other kind can 

 have. At least, so the Southerners say. Hams from mast-fed 

 hogs, smoked over hickory for six hours daily for six days, with 

 occasionally a handful of juniper berries thrown on the hickory 

 to spice the smoke, are an American delicacy to place beside 

 the cheeses of Brie and the wines of Champagne. 



