58 BULLETIN 648. TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Next to feeds, the largest item of cost is that of man labor, equal- 

 ing nearly 10 per cent of the gross costs, followed by the interest 

 charge, and others of minor importance. The average number of 

 hog units 1 on each farm was 77 and the cost per pound of live- 

 weight gain 2 was 5.1 cents. Ten of these 55 farms suffered losses 

 from hog cholera, which, of course, increased the cost per pound of 

 the remaining hogs. On the 45 farms free from such losses the 

 average cost per pound was 4.7 cents. 



The manure credit that has been deducted from- the gross cost 

 represents the estimated value of the residual fertilizing effect of 

 the peanuts pastured off by the hogs. It is the consensus of opinion 

 held by these farmers, based on experience, that the peanut crop 

 grown and harvested from the soil is as severe a drain on soil fer- 

 tility as is the growing of a crop of corn. Manifestly, then, any 

 fertilizing value of peanuts " hogged off " is the value due to the 

 method of harvesting, and as such should be a credit to the hogs and 

 not to the peanuts. The average of a large number of estimates 3 

 places this fertilizer value due to the method of harvesting at $1.50 

 per acre of " solid " peanuts " hogged off," and at 75 cents per acre 

 of peanuts and corn. Upon this basis the credits to the hogs have 

 been calculated and entered as a manure credit. 



Of special significance is the large proportion of the cost repre- 

 sented by pasture crops, especially peanuts. Undoubtedly herein 

 lies the secret of profitable swine production in Brooks County. 



Cost of slaughtering and curing swine. — It has long been the prac- 

 tice of the farmers of Brooks County to slaughter their hogs at 

 home. Recently, however, a packing plant has been erected in an 

 adjoining county, affording a ready market for live stock. Since 

 the farmers now have the choice of selling their hogs on foot or of 

 doing the slaughtering at home and marketing the resulting prod- 

 ucts, it is of interest to know- the cost of killing and curing at home. 

 These costs are shown in Table XXIII. On the farms that killed 

 an average of 2,764 pounds of live hogs the cost amounted to 87 cents 

 per hundred pounds of live weight, but on the farms that slaughtered 

 16,395 pounds each the cost was reduced by nearly one-half, or to 



a A hog unit is a mature hog maintained on the farm during the year, or the equiva- 

 lent of a 200-pound hog grown during the year. Immature hogs slaughtered or on hand 

 at the end of the year were reduced to hog units by dividing the total live weight by 200 

 pounds. 



2 The live-weight gain includes the weight of all hogs sold and slaughtered, and any 

 differences in the weights of all hogs on the farms at the beginning and ending of the 

 farm year. 



3 In getting these estimates the farmers were asked, first, how much more rent they 

 would be willing to pay for the use of Brooks County land on which either peanuts or 

 peanuts and corn had been grown the previous year than they would for similar land that 

 had produced a crop of corn ; second, how much less fertilizer, measured by value, they 

 would apply to a crop of cotton planted on land that had produced peanuts or peanuts 

 and corn than on land following corn. The replies gave a wide range of estimates, the 

 average of which is given above. 



