Hogs and Hominy 155 



A breakfast of ponhaws and buckwheat cakes, with real 

 maple syrup, is something to remember. 



Pork is America's national meat. No other meat appears so 

 frequently on so many tables of rich and poor, and in so many 

 forms. Besides eating it ourselves, we built up a sizable export 

 trade in pork and lard. In 1900, 14 percent of all the pork we 

 raised, and 38 percent of the lard we refined was sold in for- 

 eign markets. 



With ready markets at home and abroad farmers extended 

 their cornfields, built more sties, and went in for hog and 

 hominy farming. This was especially true in the corn belt where 

 nearly three quarters of all the hogs in the country were raised. 

 A further incentive to this expansion was the number of small 

 packers who started business in the towns in the northern 

 midwest, close to the source of the hog supply. These were 

 usually family businesses, run by one man and his sons. They 

 bought the hogs from the farmers near by, processed them, 

 and resold the meat and lard to the big packers in Chicago, or 

 to retailers in nearer cities and towns. They offered the farmer 

 quick cash for his hogs and a nearby market. They encouraged 

 him to feed his corn to his hogs and let it go to market on its 

 own four feet. 



Gradually, under these influences, the northern midwest 

 changed from a grain to a corn-and-hog-raising area. 



The small packers though some of them, like George 

 Hormel, now have businesses valued at many millions of dol- 

 lars working with agents of the Bureau of Animal Husbandry, 

 improved the hogs and the conditions under which they were 

 kept and fed. The state fairs and cattle shows helped in this 

 too. Ultimately the little packers and the big ones like Swift, 

 Armour, etc. formed an organization called the Institute of 

 American Meat Packers, with a membership of three hundred, 

 and an annual business of three billions of dollars. 



Draw an equilateral triangle, and you have a picture of the 

 factors which were represented in the farm and hog situation 



