CHAPTER XXVI. 

 BREEDING FOR THE MARKET. 



Hog raising has always been a profitable and favorite de- 

 partment of farming in the United States. In colonial times 

 pork production was a very simple matter. Hogs were allowed 

 to run wild in the woods where they fed upon roots and nat- 

 ural grasses and fattened upon acorns and beech and hickory 

 nuts, called "mast." The only expense to the farmer was the 

 winter feeding of those too young for market and of those reserved 



Fig. 104. An Excellent Boar. 



Duroc-Jersey boar, Good Enuff Again, Champion at the Ohio State 

 Fair. Owned by W. H. Robbins, Springfield, Ohio. This boar has size, 

 bone, masculinity, a good back, great heart-girth, excellent feeding capacity, 

 smoothness, and quality. He weighed 1000 pounds. 



for breeding purposes. Inasmuch as Indian corn was the feed 

 used and as this cereal would not repay the expense of trans- 

 portation to market until the introduction of railways, it cost 

 very little to produce pork. Even after the organization of 

 the national government and the settling of the Middle West 

 it was the general impression among farmers that it cost nothing 

 for a man to make his own pork, and for a long time large num- 

 bers of dressed hogs were sold in that section of the country 



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