Marketing and Markets 365 



market within twenty-four hours after leaving their 

 home yards. 



The cars should be thoroughly cleaned before loading. 

 Half rotted straw or manure should not be used for 

 bedding, but clean straw in winter and preferably sand, 

 if available, in summer. Sawdust, hay, cinders, gravel, 

 and coal are also quite generally employed. Overloading 

 in hot weather is fatal. They will ride better if the 

 car is just comfortably full when the hogs are lying 

 down. The average number of hogs to a car arriving 

 at the Chicago yards in 1915 was seventy-six, and at 

 Kansas City eighty-two. About 18 per cent of the 

 stock cars owned by the railroads in 1908 were double- 

 deck cars.^ 



In driving and loading, the hogs should not be hurried 

 or excited. . Crippled hogs sell at a discount of $1.00 a 

 hundred. Marks and lumps on hogs, the result of kicks, 

 beatings, or injury in loading or in transit, spoil the appear- 

 ance and value of the carcass and affect the selling price 

 proportionally. Because of the fright and worry caused 

 by rough handling and jostlings while on the cars, the 

 shipper should be prompt to protest against any unneces- 

 sary switching and general rough treatment when stops 

 are made and additional cars are taken on. 



In hot weather the hogs should be hosed as often as 

 possible before loading and in transit. Facilities for this 

 should be demanded at division points. If the haul is 

 longer than thirty-six hours, the amended Federal twenty- 

 eight-hour law requires that stock be unloaded for rest, 

 feed and water, which frequently works a hardship on 

 the shipper. An ingenious method of saving the hogs in 



1 BVank Andrews : " Cost and Method of Transporting Meat 

 Animals," U. S. Dept. Agr., Year Book, 1908. 



