THE BREEDER AND BREEDING 1 5 



hardier hogs were the first to succumb. Their feeding- 

 habits were irregular; on one day they would gorge 

 iheniselves so that they would be found fasting for the 

 next day or more. These compelling forces of heredity 

 made plain that both right breeding and right environ- 

 ment are essential to the attainment of right results. ' At 

 the same time environment may be, in some cases, a;- 

 destructiv^e in its results as in other cases it is beneficial. 

 Swine typical of the best breeding require but two or 

 three generations of wrong environment to degenerate 

 to the level of the most unapproved types. Much, there- 

 fore, depends upon the breeder and his provisions for 

 and care in handling. 



BREEDING AS A BUSINESS 



Breeding is a business and should be conducted on 

 that basis. Whether supplied with unlimited capital or 

 restricted to a few hogs and meager facilities the breeder 

 has excellent opportunity to exercise his business sense, 

 and swine raising will pay him well therefor. The man 

 who is careless or indolent may have as much or more 

 ill "luck" in raising hogs as in any other similar under- 

 taking. 



When hogs for some time bring more than ordinarily 

 high prices the tendency and temptation are for rushing 

 pellmell into swine raising, and likewise to be forgetful 

 of quality in obtaining quantity. It has always been so. 

 and probably always will be. But the author's obser- 

 vation is that it has taken persistent and skillful 

 mismanagement to lose money in hog raising with prices 

 as they liave ranged for 30 years past, barring, of 



