AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 85 



FEEDING EXPERIMENTS WITH SWINE. 



The feeding experiments that have been carried on at this Sta- 

 tion during the past two years have largely invloved the use of 

 swine as the experimental animals. It should not be assumed 

 from this that the hog is regarded as of unusual importance in 

 Maine agriculture. Pork production must certainly rank in this 

 State much below the dairy or stock growing, but it is, nevertheless, 

 a matter of general interest, for on each farm more or less swine 

 are grown either for home consumption or for sale. Moreover, 

 swine are useful in consuming and converting into a cash product, 

 the waste materials from the dairy. 



Again, experiments in pig feeding are in some respects espec- 

 ially satisfactory as compared with those conducted with milch 

 cows or steers, for the reason that there is much less uncertainty 

 due to the daily variations in weight of the experimental animals. 

 The weights of a thousand pound steer taken on two consecutive 

 days may differ as much as ten or fifteen pounds, whereas the 

 weight of a growing pig will uniformily increase by approximately 

 the amount of growth. Conclusions based upon the relative 

 growth of swine fed upon different rations seem therefore to be 

 especially safe, and so a test of a theory of nutrition by the use of 

 these animals may promptly give a definite answer, which may 

 have a practical bearing not only upon tbe matter of pork produc- 

 tion but upon production of other kinds as well. 



The feeding experiments with swine which are grouped together 

 on the followiug pages have been going on during the past two 

 years, and are now published for the first time. The publication 

 of the earlier experiments has been delayed until they could be 

 discussed in connection with the later ones now just completed, 

 because they are all more or less related in purpose. These experi- 

 ments were planned and begun with the idea of illustrating the 

 feeding value of skimmed milk, but as one question after another 

 has arisen, they have been enlarged and modified until they have 

 furnished testimony bearing upon several points important from 

 both the scientific and practical standpoints. These points stated 

 somewhat in the language of science are : 



(1.) The most efficient ratio of nutrients in a ration. 



(2.) The relation between the nutritive ratio and the character 

 of the growth. 



2-G 



