192 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



BREEDING AND FEEDING OF SWINE. 



BY THEODORE LOUIS OF LOUISVILLE, WISCONSIN. 



[Stenographic report by J. M. W. Tkrrinton.] 



Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen : — When I 

 received the cordial invitation of your secretary to come to 

 your State and deliver a lecture on the breeding and feeding 

 of swine, I hesitated very much about accepting the invita- 

 tion, because of the great distance of your State from mine, 

 the difference in agricultural methods, the difference in 

 handling animals, the different resources for feed, and the 

 difference in markets. I thought I might not be able to be 

 of any benefit to you by giving you an account of my experi- 

 ence and practice. But, considering the subject at greater 

 length, I said to myself, there can certainly be no difference 

 in breeding and feeding for profit, be it in Massachusetts or 

 be it in the corn belt. The close competition of the day in 

 all farm products calls for the highest intelligence, calls for 

 more knowledge and for greater economy in all our opera- 

 tions. By force of circumstances I became a pioneer in the 

 State of Wisconsin, going there in the year 1848 as a boy, I 

 might say. Reared and brought up in a city in Germany, I left 

 my country as a fugitive. You must know it was somewhat of 

 a change from the work of a silversmith to the study of hog- 

 ology. By force of circumstances I was located upon a sandy 

 piece of land, and you may ask, " Why, when all the fertile 

 West lay open to you, from the Mississippi to the Rocky 

 Mountains ? " But these are the facts, and these facts have 

 been the means of making me a learner, and I stand before 

 you to-day as a learner only. There is no man who will ever 

 become master of the art of agriculture, because we have to 

 grasp and grapple with Nature, and she will never unfold 

 herself unless we pry with knowledge. The painter may 



