CHAPTER IV 

 JUDGING SWINE 



Judging swine. — The judging of swine is the exercising 

 of the ability to distinguish between the respective merits 

 of swine intended for special purposes. The standards 

 for comparison are ideals. A good judge of swine must 

 possess a clear conception of what constitutes an ideal. 

 When a pen of swine is placed before him to be judged 

 he must be able to recognize values. Especially must a 

 judge stick to his ideal type and have the conviction of his 

 judgment to enable him to stand by his decision. As a 

 rule, the judging of swine is best learned by association 

 with a good judge. The judge should be encouraged to 

 discuss the various points of the hogs being judged in 

 order to illustrate the standards of perfection he emplovs. 

 If, in addition to this, one can become familiar with a 

 good herd, the standard types maj^ be more readily fixed 

 in mind. It is not often that the same person can become 

 a good judge of several breeds, but almost anyone may 

 become a fair judge of swine in a general way after a 

 short time of practice and application. 



In the main, we judge hogs on three bases. The first 

 of these is the market hog basis, in which pork is the 

 direct object sought. In the second place, we judge for 

 breeding purposes, in which the production of swine for 

 slaughter is the ultimate object; we sometimes judge on 

 the feeding or stock hog basis. Since at the bases of all 

 swine judging is ultimate slaughter, we may well say that 

 the second and third bases of judging are merely exten- 



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