Feeding and Care of Pigs 129 



sumer, and to the improvements in methods of curing, 

 refrigeration, and transportation of pork products. 



The weight and type of hog in greatest demand by the 

 market is not necessarily the best for the farmer to pro- 

 duce in a given season. When corn is cheap and hogs 

 relatively high, it is profitable to sacrifice some on selling 

 price a pound for heavier weights. On the other hand, 

 when feed is high and hogs cheap, the feeder is disposed 

 to market early and at immature weights. In general, 

 however, the requirements of the packer and shipper 

 coincide fairly well with the type and weight of hog which 

 the farmers of the corn-belt find most profitable to produce. 

 This is a hog weighing from 200 to 275 pounds and of the 

 general lard type, what the packer calls a medium weight 

 butcher hog. Ordinarily, it is advisable to market at 

 a weight somewhere between these limits. 



Canadian farmers cannot afford to compete with those 

 of the corn-belt by producing the fat-back lard hog. 

 Both their feed supply and packing interests favor the 

 production of the type of hog that will meet the require- 

 ments of curers of the best British bacon. This means 

 a hog of strictly bacon type, full of lean meat, and capable 

 of producing the "Wiltshire side." (See page 401.) 

 Pigs of this type, sometimes called "singers" on the 

 Chicago market, weighing from 160 to 220 pounds and 

 finished so that the layer of fat on the back and loin is 

 no more than 1^ to Ij inches in thickness, is the kind 

 which experience has shown the great bulk of northern 

 farmers should seek to place on the market. 1 These 

 requirements of weight and quality are standard, and 

 practically constant from year to year and from season 

 to season. The price received for the finished pigs is 

 1 Bull. 10, Dept. of Agr., Dominion of Canada. 



