280 TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 



9. Hog raising requires a smaller investment in animals 

 and equipment and yields quicker and relatively larger results 

 than any other branch of animal husbandry. 



Swine are useful as a source of meat and lard. Some swine 

 produce meat only, and some produce lard as well as meat. 

 Differences in the demands of consumers of pork, together with 

 differences in the kinds of feed available for pork production, 

 have resulted in the establishment of two distinct types of swine 

 lard type and bacon type. The lard hog is an American pro- 

 duction found chiefly in the cornbelt states where corn is the 

 principal feed for all farm animals. Corn is a great fattening 

 feed, and when fed to hogs it is converted into fat from which 

 lard is made. Breeders have therefore developed a type of hog 

 specially adapted to converting feed, principally corn, into fat, 

 and at the same time growing a carcass highly valued for the 

 various cuts of meat which it yields. 



The bacon hog is also found in America, principally in 

 Canada, however, which is outside the cornbelt. In Canada 

 the feeds available for pork production are peas, barley, wheat, 

 oats, rye, skim milk, and roots. As compared with corn, these 

 feeds are not so fattening; they are muscle builders, and hogs 

 produced with such feeds take on relatively little fat and are not 

 useful as a source of lard. Canadians have made no effort to 

 compete with the hogs of the cornbelt; instead they produce 

 a hog suitable for the English and Canadian trade a hog whose 

 carcass yields the largest proportion of high-grade bacon. 



From what has been said it may appear that there is no 

 real hereditary difference in the temperaments and make-ups 

 of the two types of hogs, but that the differences between them 

 are solely the result of differences in the feeds upon which they 

 are produced. This is largely true, yet it is a fact that when 

 pigs of the bacon type are brought into the cornbelt and fed 

 along with lard hogs, they never entirely lose the bacon type; 

 and when the lard hog is taken into a bacon-producing section 

 and fed with bacon hogs, there is the same degree of change, 

 but the lard hog does not lose his identity under such a system 

 of feeding. Therefore we must conclude that there is something 

 besides the difference in the feeds which accounts for the two 

 distinct types; in other words, there is an hereditary difference 

 between the two kinds of swine. 



These facts in regard to swine are no more unique than 

 the results of efforts by some men to produce milk from beef 



