126 HOW TO FEED YOUR HOGS 



with drylot fed pigs, self-fed corn and tankage alongside, 366 

 pounds of corn plus 881 pounds of tankage, which, valued at $1.50 

 a bushel and $100 a ton, is equivalent to a saving of $53.86 worth 

 of high-priced feed saved by an acre of rape. 



Try rape and you will like it. To grow it once means to keep on 

 growing it, because it does well, saves high-priced feed and stays 

 green during the entire growing season furnishing succulent feed 

 for the swine herd, particularly in July and August, when other 

 pasture crops are inclined to dry up. 



Medium Red Clover. It is hardly necessary to go into detail 

 in regard to the practicability of medium red clover as a forage 

 crop for swine, because it is so widely known and so favorably re- 

 ceived wherever grown to advantage that most men understand its 

 efficiency. Medium red clover, unless quite young and tender, does 

 not, however, analyze so well as alfalfa or rape, but it does contain 

 a large proportion of those ordinary constituents which go to bal- 

 ance the ordinary grain ration such as protein, mineral elements 

 and vitamines. It is possible to get along fairly well on good clover 

 pasture without any high-priced supplement, but it is not so easy to 

 do this as on rape or alfalfa. 



Red clover fits into the ration finely, and will continue to be 

 used. It is difficult in some localities to get a stand, although in 

 certain sections, as central Indiana, it seems to be easy to catch a 

 seeding. It does not withstand drouth so well as alfalfa or rape 

 or even sweet clover, and, as a result, in July and August, and par- 

 ticularly in the latter part of August, it becomes dry and hard. 

 Rains are necessary about this time in order to stimulate second 

 growth, and if rains do not come we have hard, brown clover which 

 is unpalatable, and is not eaten by the pigs, and hence, of course, 

 they lose its balancing effects. When clover blooms nicely pigs are 

 particularly fond of the blossoms, inasmuch as they have a sweet 

 taste that apparently is relished. 



One of the Best Swine Pastures. One can make no mistake in 

 depending on red clover in the regular rotation, inasmuch as it is 

 one of our three best swine pastures. In its place we can depend on 

 alsike clover which, if it yields about the same, will give similar 

 results. Mammoth clover is excellent, and will do about the same as 

 medium red clover. White clover is fine, but in the great middle 

 west sections it really is a supplementary crop supplementary to 

 bluegrass, and helps make bluegrass more efficient in the early 

 season. When one grows pasture crops, such as red clover or al- 

 falfa, he can always cut them for hay, in case the pigs do not mate- 

 rialize just right or in case they are switched over to some other 

 crop. With rape, however, it is essential that it be pastured, be- 

 cause it cannot be cured in the ordinary hay-making way to ad- 

 vantage. 



