I6 SWINE IN AMERICA 



course, some such epidemic as tiie so-called cholera. 

 There is no branch of farming- or stock husbandry which, 

 conchicted with a reasonable amount of fair horse sense 

 and starved with systematically, one year with another, 

 will do better by its proprietor - ' more successfully 

 keep the wolf and sheriff from his door than the rearing 

 of well-bred swine. This, if he is satisfied with reason- 

 able gains and such substantial, steady growth as per- 

 tains to the better class of farming, conducted with 

 skill and intelligence. If the experience of the best men 

 is worth anything, if their observations and bookkeeping- 

 have any value as standpoints from which to judge, there 

 is surely a profit in wisely bred, wisely fed hogs, and 

 there always has been, at any price for which they have 

 been sold two years in succession within the observation 

 of men now in active life. 



As a good business man, the breeder should inquire 

 into his own qualifications and special fitness for 

 raising swine. In any line of work, and especially in 

 agriculture, the man who would obtain results must 

 possess and apply enthusiasm, method, energy and 

 knowledge. Whosoever lacks at least the germ of 

 each of these errs when he begins. No man in whom 

 there was not born a pleasure in the handling and care 

 of animals should have anything to do with live stock 

 husbandry. His efforts will not advance the develop- 

 ment of any breed, nor is he likely to ever become the 

 shipper of any market-toppers. The shiftless, careless 

 man whose study is to devise plans for avoiding work, 

 to whom feeding his animals is a drudgery, and their 



