UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 488 



Joint Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 



WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief, and the Bureau of 



Animal Industry, A. D. MELVIN, Chief 



ji\Jsr^Lru 



jrw*"^wi* 



Washington, D. C. 



February 26, 1917 



EXPERIMENTS IN THE DISPOSAL OF IRRIGATED 

 CROPS THROUGH THE USE OF HOGS. 1 



By James A. Holden, Assistant, Office of Western Irrigation Agriculture. 

 In cooperation with the Bureau of Animal Industry. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Introduction 1 



General description o( the methods followed . . 2 



Alfalfa pasturing experiments 3 



Alfalfa pasture supplemented with a 2 per 



cent ration of corn 3 



Alfalfa pasture with various grain supple- 

 ments 7 



Page. 



Alfalfa pasturing experiments— Continued. 



Alfalfa pasture for sows and litters 16 



Hogging corn 19 



Corn without supplementary feed 19 



Corn with supplementary feed 21 



Summary 24 



INTRODUCTION. 



The farmer who makes a success on high-priced irrigated land must 

 not only grow large crops, but he must market these crops in the 

 most advantageous way. Most crops grown in localities far removed 

 from the large consuming centers should be marketed in condensed 

 form, so as to reduce the cost of transportation. For example, a 

 hundred pounds of butter can be shipped to market much more 

 cheaply than the hay and grain required to produce this butter. The 

 farmer should take advantage of this fact in organizing his opera- 

 tions. In addition to this saving, the manure resulting from the 

 feeding of the crops makes it possible to produce larger crops in sub- 

 sequent years. 



1 The experiments reported in this bulletin have been conducted on the Scottsbluff 

 Experiment Farm on the North Platte Irrigation Project in Nebraska. This experiment 

 farm is conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture in cooperation with 

 the State Experiment Station of Nebraska. The primary object of these experiments 

 has been to determine the most efficient method of utilizing alfalfa, which is the most 

 important crop on this project, as it is on nearly all of the irrigated projects of the 

 West. The author desires to acknowledge the assistance given him by Mr. Henry Sullivan 

 in carrying out the details of the experiments. — C. S. Scofield, Agriculturist in Charge, 

 Office of Western Irrigation Agriculture. 

 65731°— Bull. 4SS— 17 1 



