GOOD PIGS XEED GOOD CAEE. 37 



ities which it is the object of the breeder to perpetuate. 

 To raise highly improved, thorough- bred pigs, requires 

 more care, skill, judgment, and experience than we can 

 afford to bestow on animals designed to be sold in a few 

 months to the butcher. 



The object of raising improved thorough-bred pigs is 

 simply to improve our common stock. They should be 

 raised for this purpose, and for this purpose only. The 

 farmer should buy a thorough-bred boar from some relia- 

 ble breeder, and select the largest and best sows he has to 

 cross him with. A thorough-bred boar at six weeks or two 

 months old can usually be bought for $20 or $25. Such a 

 boar in a neighborhood is capable of adding a thousand 

 dollars a year to the profits of the farmers who use him. 



CHAPTER VII. 



GOOD PIGS NEED GOOD CARE. 



We have said that an improved thorough-bred boar in 

 a neighborhood is capable of greatly improving the qual- 

 ities of the common stock, and adding largely to the prof- 

 its of feeding pigs. But it is nevertheless a fact that such 

 boars have been used by some farmers with little or no 

 benefit. 



There are several reasons for this : There are farmers in 

 every neighborhood who half starve their breeding sows. 

 Some of them do this deliberately, from a conviction that 

 it improves their breeding and suckling qualities, just as 

 some dairymen think a cow must be kept poor if she is to 

 be a good milker. They mistake the cause for the effect. 

 The cow is thin because she is a good milker, and not a 

 good milker because she is thin. So a good sow gets very 

 thin in suckling her pigs, but it is a great mistake to keep 

 her thin, in order to make her a good breeder and suckler. 



