210 Pork Production 



is the most suitable and profitable for a given farm should 

 first be considered in its larger aspect; namely, with 

 reference to the primary purpose for which the hogs are 

 produced and the general system of feeding which best 

 suits the plan of management followed for the farm as 

 a whole. This phase of the question has already been 

 discussed in the earlier pages of Chapter VII. 



The other considerations which affect the problem 

 more directly are the rate and cost of gains during the 

 forage season ; the rate and cost of gains during the 

 dry lot feeding period ; the proportion of old and new 

 corn used in full as against limited feeding while on forage ; 

 and the time of marketing as affected by limited versus 

 full feeding while on forage. 



Rate and cost of gains during forage season. 



Most of the experimental work done to help solve the 

 question of whether a full or a limited ration on forage 

 was the most efficient and profitable has been confined 

 to a study of the forage period only, rather than for the 

 entire period from weaning to the time market weights 

 had been attained. Since 1904, fifteen separate experi- 

 ments l of this kind have been conducted in which twenty- 

 five comparisons of limited versus full grain feeding have 

 been made. A careful study of the results furnished by 

 these practical tests, considered individually and col- 

 lectively, supports the following conclusions : 



(1) The more liberal the grain feeding, the faster were 

 the gains. Maximum gains were made only when full 



i Neb. Exp. Sta. Bull. 99 ; Kans. Exp. Sta. Bull. 192 ; Ala. 

 Exp. Sta. Bull. 147 ; Iowa Exp. Sta. Circ. Letter ; Ohio Exp. 

 Sta. unpublished data ; 111. Exp. Sta., Circ. Letter ; Ind. Exp. 

 Bta., unpublished data. 



