194 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



distance, who keeps track of the animals that he raises and 

 sells, he could breed intelligently and avoid the danger 

 from in-breeding. We learned from the professor who 

 addressed us the other morning the consequences of in- 

 breeding even in plants ; how much more disastrous must 

 be the results of careless in-breeding in animal life ? The 

 farmer should leave in-breeding to the professional breeder. 

 My experience has been that the result of in-breeding as a 

 rule is against it. The instances of success are but few, the 

 failures are always the most numerous. The character of 

 the sire is the one thing which is greatly neglected and 

 undervalued by the general farmer. The animal as a rule is 

 turned out with the herd, and is subjected to severe treat- 

 ment because he is a hog. He is subjected to excessive 

 service, thereby lessening his vigor ; and by lessening his 

 vigor we lessen the vigor and power of his progeny. 



Before I speak of the character of the sire, I would say 

 that too much stress cannot be laid upon the question of 

 health. At the present day, with the rapid facilities for 

 transportation, what is here to-day is in Chicago to-morrow, 

 and the next day or in a few days it is away off on the Pacific 

 coast. The germ of disease moves as rapidly as the rail- 

 road train, and no new animals should be introduced into 

 our herd until they have been subjected to quarantine at 

 home. You may not be troubled with hog cholera or the 

 different diseases of swine. Swine are subject to all the dis- 

 eases that a human being is, from measles to consumption 

 and cholera. My practice is to confine every animal I 

 purchase at least ten days, away from my herd ; so that, if 

 it has the germs of disease, these germs will have time to 

 develop and I will not run the risk of introducing disease 

 into my herd. I have made a specialty for twenty years of 

 swine breeding, and I have had but one hog die with sick- 

 ness, and he died from typhoid fever. The safest way is to 

 kill a diseased hog outright, and not try to cure it. 



My sires are confined in yards eighty feet long and forty 

 feet wide, with tight board fences ; each yard with a house 

 seven by eight feet, seven feet high in front and five feet at 

 the rear. They are the cheapest houses either for breeding 

 purposes or for the wintering of hogs. If a man has enough 



