464 DOMESTIC ANIMALS, DAIRYING, ETC. 



home killing, the following fall or early winter. It will seldom pay 

 to keep them through the first winter. When the pig is sucking the 

 mother both should be given the run of a pasture crop in order that 

 grain may be saved. If the pig is born in late winter, any of the 

 crops heretofore mentioned can be used until the summer crops be- 

 gin to come on. When green crops and pastures are thus used the 

 pig can be gotten up to weaning time as cheaply, perhaps more 

 cheaply, than he can be carried from weaning time to a finish. Bur 

 clover, which is a part of the permanent pasture system, should, of 

 course, be used during the late winter and early spring months. 

 When the pigs are from 60 to 75 pounds in weight they are ready to 

 begin to finish, and this is the time that the summer pasture crops 

 should be ready to use. This date will be about August. (F. B. 

 411.) 



It is not safe or even desirable to rely upon a single crop, ex- 

 cepting alfalfa where it is an assured success, to furnish pasture for 

 our hogs throughout the entire season. It is better to arrange for a 

 succession of pastures from the beginning of the season until the 

 hogs are ready for market, making the feed richer and more con- 

 centrated toward the close of the season and as we approach the fin- 

 ishing or fattening period. For this purpose the following crops 

 are recommended, red clover or alfalfa, cowpeas, soy beans. (Mo. 



J5. <y. ) 



Red clover, sorghum and Spanish peanuts were the best foods 

 for succession. They are cheap and easy to produce, and their sea- 

 sons of maturity are in convenient order for pigs to consume them. 

 Rooting for the peanuts was too slight to injure the soil. By this 

 system of raising and fattening^ pigs the manure remains scattered 

 over the soil from which the foods were eaten. The cost to produce 

 a pound of pork with a pig from birth to 10 months of age on red 

 clover, sorghum and peanuts, and 6 3-5 bushels of corn and grown on 

 soil that would produce 25 bushels of corn per acre was 1% cents. 

 The rotation of red clover, sorghum and peanuts is a system that 

 required 6 3-5 bushels of corn to produce a hog weighing 243 pounds 

 at 10 months old. Less corn could have been fed in farm practice 

 by keeping the pigs two weeks longer on peanuts in December, and 

 feeding corn only while the ground was frozen. The time could be 

 shortened probably a month, and produce the same weight, 243 

 pounds, by grazing peanuts earlier, and by feeding on alfalfa in- 

 stead of red clover. By this system of pig grazing the farmer raises 

 the crops and the pigs gather them. (Ark. B. 73.) 



When corn is -used alone as a hog feed money is almost sure 

 to be lost. It has been shown that the feeding value of corn is in- 

 creased as a result of the use of almost any supplement. But even 

 when corn is assisted by the supplementary feeds mentioned, there 

 are but few cases where 70 cents is realized for a bushel of corn; 

 that is, when hogs sell for 5 cents a pound live weight. Under pres- 

 ent conditions the southern farmer must see his way clear to realize 

 at least 70 cents a bushel upon his corn when fed to hogs before he 

 can look upon the hog business as a profitable one. In short, con- 



