CHAPTER XXIX. 

 SUGGESTIONS TO BEGINNERS. 



Starting in Business. One of the most common mistakes 

 for a beginner to make is to be too ambitious, and to make his 

 start on too large a scale. As a result, he is liable to meet with 

 some rather serious losses and to become discouraged. Perhaps 

 the safest way to start is to buy one or two young sows safely in 

 pig to a good boar. It costs more money to start this way than 

 to buy newly weaned pigs, but this disadvantage is more than 

 compensated by the fact that a person is able to make a much 

 more intelligent selection by buying a more fully developed 

 animal than he could make if he bought his sow very young. In 

 addition to this advantage, he has a shorter time to wait for 

 returns. He is also saved the necessity of immediately buying 

 a boar, if there is not a good one in the near neighborhood, and 

 need not tie up capital in a boar until he has had some money 

 returns from his venture, provided, of course, that he cares to 

 sell some of his young pigs at an early age. ( See " Selection of 

 the Sow," pp. 37 and 38.) 



Breed to Select. As to the breed to select, each man must 

 be his own judge. Nearly any of our well-known breeds will 

 give good results if intelligently handled. Generally speaking, 

 however, it is safer for a beginner to select a breed which is 

 popular in his own neighborhood. By doing so, he has a better 

 chance to make new selections for his herd, and will find it 

 easier to sell breeding stock in his own neighborhood in the face 

 of competition, than to do missionary work for a new breed, 

 which, after all his efforts, may fail to win popularity in his 

 district. This paragraph applies only to the man who wishes 



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