BREEDS OF SWINE 455 



small amounts, the kettle gave the better results, while the steam 

 was more convenient for larger quantities. (Mich. B. 243.) 



Cotton-Seed Meal. The deaths that sometimes occur as a result 

 of feeding cotton-seed meal to hogs deter the majority of fanners 

 from using it. It is a feed that, if used at all, must be used in moder- 

 ation and with judgment. The Bureau of Animal Industry and most 

 of the southern experiment stations have fed it both fermented and 

 sweet and killed pigs in both cases. There is a risk when it is used 

 for long periods of time, and the man who feeds it should bear in 

 mind this risk. It is not a feed for the farmer to experiment with. 

 He should keep well within bounds when feeding cotton-seed meal to 

 his animals. It is not safe to feed it to hogs, even when making up 

 only one-third of the whole ration, for more than twenty-one days. 

 If it is to be used longer than twenty-one days, the proportion of the 

 meal should be cut down to one-fifth or one-sixth of the entire ra- 

 tion, and even then there is great danger. This danger may be 

 averted somewhat by allowing the hogs plenty of succulent pasture. 



Aside from the deaths that may occur, cotton-seed meal is an 

 excellent feed. In fact, it is probably the best feed in the South to 

 go along with corn. It has been charged that it is impossible to keep 

 the hogs eating well when part of the ration consists of cotton-seed 

 meal, but the writer has experienced no trouble in keeping all the an- 

 imals keen for the next meal when the mixture of corn and meal has 

 been fed as a thin slop, so that it could be drunk rather than picked 

 up and eaten. If it is fed in a doughy condition, the pigs will soon 

 go off feed. 



When cotton-seed meal is fed along with corn the cost of the 

 gains is greatly reduced provided no deaths occur. While the ex- 

 pense of making pork is greatly reduced when corn is supplemented 

 with cotton-seed meal, still, with corn at 70 cents a bushel and cot- 

 ton-seed meal at $25 a ton, it is seldom that the feeder can come out 

 even when employing them without further supplements. In the 

 Alabama test each bushel of corn when used alone realized 47.5 cents, 

 with hogs selling at 5 cents, but when the corn was used along with 

 cotton-seed meal, the value of each bushel was raised to 56.2 cents. 

 The North Carolina work illustrates what poor use hogs will some- 

 times make of corn when they receive nothing but corn. Assuming 

 the same live price for hogs, only 21.8 cents were realized for each 

 bushel of corn. However, while the regular market price was not 

 secured for the corn, even when cotton-seed meal was fed along with 

 it, still as a result of the addition of small amounts of the meal the 

 value of the corn was doubled in one case and multiplied by 2 l /2 in. 

 the other case. 



As will be seen later, cotton-seed meal has at least one valuable 

 and safe place in our pork-making operations a place where it can 

 be fed in large amounts. It can, and should, be used along with corn 

 in a short dry-lot finishing period after the pasture and grazing crops 

 are exhausted. Corn is excellent for finishing up an animal when he 

 is taken off of green crops, but corn with cotton-seed meal is still 

 better, because, first, the gains are made more economically when the 



