Pedigreed Animals and Plants. 25 



of such form or color that buyers of fat hogs could 

 distinguish them in the stock yards they would sell 

 for a better price. Certainly consumers buying at the 

 block would gladly pay for more lean meat through- 

 out. The writer has observed carcasses of hogs which 

 have over 50 per cent more lean meat than other car- 

 casses of the same size and reared and fed under the 

 same conditions. There are wide variations of, lean 

 meat even in the individuals of the brood of one sow. 

 There is a marked difference in the proportion of lean 

 meat in one breed as compared with another. No doubt 

 prepotent in producing a large percentage of lean meat 

 and others in which the progeny average less in this 

 desirable characteristic. Actual measurements in the 

 thickness of lean meat could not be generally carried out 

 in practical breeding of pedigreed hogs by the ordinary 

 small breeder, nor should that be necessary. But the 

 State or co-operative organization or large corporations 

 might record such measurements ; or the State or coun- 

 ty might aid the co-operative organizations and founda- 

 tion stock be thus made available for the common 

 breeder. 



It is not probable that suggestions here made can 

 be worked out without modification. But to place the 

 suggestions under specific and practical conditions let us 

 assume that twenty farmers in Carver County, Minn., 

 are organized into a co-operative hog breeders' associa- 

 tion. Let this association deliberately plan to take 

 the lead in the production of a strain of Yorkshire 

 hogs which shall be more cholera-resistant, especially 

 high in percentage of lean meat, excelling in the num- 

 ber of pigs successfully reared per litter, superior in 

 the amount of growth per hundred pounds of standard 

 food eaten, comely, uniform in appearance and prepo- 

 tent when used in crossing and upgrading and other- 

 wise valuable and desirable. Let the association de- 

 termine upon a type of hog that shall be the ideal to- 

 ward which all shall work. Let each of the twenty 

 breeders secure by private means or through chosen 



