ALFALFA FOR SWINE. 4038 
der to keep the animal in health. If its intestines 
are vigorous then it may resist cholera germs, even 
if they are taken in. The importance of this point 
can not be over estimated. Millions of germs are 
about us, germs of all sorts. All animals take them 
in continually. When there is a vigorous, healthful 
intestinal tract these germs sometimes, even the most 
virulent, are either digested or passed off, the animal 
remaining unscathed. When there is a weak and 
sickly intestinal tract the germ finds lodgment and 
disease follows. There can hardly be any other ex- 
planation of the fact that cholera seldom troubles 
hogs rightly managed and kept in summer on alfalfa 
pasture, in winter in part on alfalfa hay. 
Fine Alfalfa Pork.—This matter is so essential 
that I here present part of a paper read by one of 
the Government inspectors before the Kansas State 
Breeders’ meeting at the Kansas agricultural col- 
lege: 
As these alfalfa hogs came down the alley to the scales, they 
were certainly hogs for the packer, raised at a profit—thrifty 
and ready to yield good-grade pork, for a good price was realized. 
You could notice that they were well up on their expanded feet; 
their height, length, and bones all rounded out with even fat, 
covered with a glossy, glistening, heavy coat of hair, and keen 
eyes alert. Their backs were straight, broad and well curved 
into long, deep sides that had plump, pointed even-shaped hams 
at one end and arched shoulders at the other. 
On post-mortem we did not find a single parasite in livers, 
lungs, kidneys or intestines, as we do in hogs grown on corn and 
cereals. Their lungs remained expanded, that is, inflated, when 
cast down in the gut chute; did not collapse, and were of a per- 
fect pink. Their stomachs were larger and did not recoil or con- 
tract readily, and same was observed of the whole intestinal tube, 
The man who pulled the intestines from the ruffle fat for cas- 
