1 86 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



The phenomenal rise in land values in recent 

 years has resulted in a depreciation of interest in 

 live stock production throughout the entire country. 

 This is applied with less force, perhaps, to the hog 

 industry than to cattle and sheep growing, but its 

 effect has been very noticeable even in this. In 

 addition, a short period of extremely low prices 

 was experienced as a direct result of the financial 

 flurry of 1907, when the hogs which had been raised 

 and finished on high-priced grain were marketed 

 at so low a price as not to pay for the grain they 

 had consumed. These two factors resulted in the 

 marketing of hundreds of thousands of breeding 

 hogs in all parts of the country. The direct 

 result of this move was in turn seen two years later 

 when the markets of the country offered the highest 

 prices paid for fat hogs since the civil war, and were 

 even then unable to secure a supply adequate for 

 the needs of the packers. The rapidity with which 

 the hog supply of the country may be diminished 

 or increased is one of the remarkable features of 

 the industry, and one reason why it is impossible 

 to forecast for any considerable length of time just 

 what the market supply or demand will be. The 

 supply will probably continue to fluctuate in the 

 future as it has in the past in sympathy with agri- 

 cultural conditions. This much, however, is cer- 

 tain: that hogs managed and fed in the most 

 economical manner, with a liberal use of pasture 

 and forage, and the feeding of minimum amounts 

 of high-priced grain, will pay higher interest on 

 the high-priced lands of the Mississippi valley than 

 will any other single class of live stock. Their 

 value as improvers of the soil should not be over- 

 looked. Although it is considerably less than that 

 of cattle and sheep, still they have a high value for 



