134 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



feeding experiment of say 60 days during the fifth 

 and sixth months of the pigs' lives, allowing uniform 

 rations. Each litter, but not each pig, would need to 

 be fed separately -so as to secure a coefficient as to the 

 amount of standard food required by each family to 

 produce a pound of pork. 



The pigs in the feeding test could then be sent to 

 the abattoir at the experiment station and slaughtered 

 under test. The tests here could include percentage of 

 lean meat, freedom from diseased conditions, percent- 

 age of dressed carcass to live weight, value of the sev- 

 eral cuts in detail and of entire carcass and such other 

 data as might prove of value and be practical to secure. 

 It now seems feasible by experimenting on a few scores 

 of hogs to establish a tabular scale applicable to the 

 leadings of a planimeter used to measure the areas of 

 lean meat, fat and bone in cross sections made at defi- 

 nite places of the carcass, thus cheaply securing the 

 percentage of lean meat in each animal placed in tests, 

 as already mentioned. These measurements can be 

 made on the cuts as made for commercial sale, thus 

 not lessening the value of the meat. The State could 

 well afford to help pay the extra expense of the care- 

 ful feeding*, do the slaughter testing and work out the 

 coefficients of value and thus give them official standing 

 in the association's statistical pedigrees. The experi- 

 ment demonstration that breeding could thus be ad- 

 vanced would many times over be repaid to the State 

 in the added revenue to farmers and breeders which 

 this would produce. All the young animals should be 

 judged on foot before dividing each litter into reserved 

 breeding and test stock, the station assisting, that the 

 general appearance and particular form of each ani- 

 mal may be recorded and in so far as useful, officially 

 incorporated into the statistical pedigrees. 



The association would know approximately at the 

 end of the first season the values of each male and 

 female selected for original foundation stock. All the 

 poorer blood lines could be discarded. The best sows 



