UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 1086 



Washington, D. C. 



October, 1922 



SHRINKAGE OF SOFT PORK UNDER COMMERCIAL 



CONDITIONS.^ 



By L. B. BuRK. Investigator in Marketing Live Stock and Meats, Live Stock, 

 and Wool Division, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. 



Meats, 



CONTENTS. 



Causes of soft and oily pork — 

 Tests on a commercial scale... . 



Plan of experiment 



Methods of liandUng the meat . 

 Results 



Page. 

 2 

 3 



4 

 5 



7 



Page. 



The true difference in the oily, soft, and firm 



pork 



Prices of the three grades of meat compared. . 



Summary -. . 



Appendix 



During the past 10 years the swine industry of the South has 

 developed very rapidly. With this development has come an 

 increased production of soft and oily pork. Until comparatively 

 recent years if was thought that acorns (or mast) was the principal 

 feed that caused soft or oily meat; but when the southern farmers 

 began growing peanuts in large quantities for feed and harvesting 

 them by hogging them down, there was a rapid increase in the number 

 of southern hogs that yielded soft or oily pork. This kind of pork 

 increased enormously, because peanut-fed hogs made profitable 

 gains and the peanut crop could be thus harvested without material 

 labor cost or waste. The crop diversification that followed the 

 extremely low price for cotton at the beginning of the World War 

 caused the southern farmers to adopt more largely the peanut and 

 hog combination. This was found to be so profitable that peanut 



1 This report is the result of a study undertaken by the Bureau of Markets in 1919 for the purpose of 

 ascertaining the causes for differences in the market prices of firm, soft, and oily hogs. Since tliis work was 

 begun, special appropriations have been made available to the Bureau of Animal Industry for the study 

 of the soft pork problem, which wiU make possible a much more comprehensive study of the causes of soft 

 pork and their prevention. 



Mention should be made of the valuable a'ssistance rendered by Mr. E. V. Baker at Fort Worth, Tex., 

 and by Mr. E. K. Hess at East St. Louis, 111., in conducting these tests at the packing plants; also by Mr. 

 Clarence T. Marsh, laboratory inspector in charge, St. Louis, Mo., who made the melting-point and iodine- 

 number determinations. 

 103756—22 1 



