26 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



officers of the association five or more sows and a boar 

 of the better strains of Yorkshire hogs and be guided by 

 rules similar to the following : 



All members shall adopt about the same date for 

 farrowing and breed each bunch of sows. All males 

 are to be kept until their progeny are matured, that 

 those proving most prepotent of the twenty males may 

 be available for use another year. All members shall 

 use similar care and similar rations and otherwise treat 

 the sews and the young broods alike. There will be 

 unavoidable differences in treatment since one man 

 will have more skim-milk for his pigs, more pasturage 

 for his shotes and will feed and care for his herd more 

 regularly and carefully than another. But reasonably 

 uniform conditions should prevail and an effort should 

 be made to induce all members to give equally good 

 care to their pigs, that all may come to the test at about 

 the same weight and from similar previous feeding and 

 care. It is safe to assume that the litters will average 

 six pigs. When four months old any very poor pigs 

 are to be discarded from further test and the best ap- 

 pearing male and the two best females are to be re- 

 served by the breeder and given that good care which 

 will develop them for breeders. From the remaining 

 number of each brood each breeder is to place at the 

 disposal of the association two or three average animals. 

 These are to be cared for and fed by some one chosen 

 for that purpose by the association. All these test ani- 

 mals are to be fed alike and together for two weeks. 

 During their sixth and seventh months the selected pigs 

 from each group are to be fed separately for six or 

 eight weeks. A ration uniform in character and adapt- 

 ed to ad libitum feeding is to be fed throughout and 

 weights of food eaten and of gains made are to be re- 

 corded. When the feeding experiment is finished all 



