FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 171 



HOG RAISING A DAIRY SIDE LINE 



By John Nelson, Peoria. 



A friend of mine has just returned from a trip through 

 Canada where he was investigating land values for a client of 

 his in the Eastern Townships, just south of Montreal bordering 

 on the states. 



He had one of the farmers drive him through the country, 

 and while riding along, he pointed to a certain farm and asked 

 him what he thought that particular land was worth. He re- 

 plied, ''About fifty dollars per cow and ten dollars per hog." 

 Later on, he pointed to another piece of land, and upon asking 

 what this was worth, the farmer replied "he did not think it was 

 worth anything as it had no cows or hogs on it." I don't know 

 whether this is the way you value land in Southern Illinois or 

 not, but it certainly speaks volumes for the dairy cow and the 

 hog. 



In Denmark, my native country, if a tenant goes to a land- 

 lord to make negotiations for renting a farm, the land owner 

 does not ask him how much money he has in the bank, or how 

 much he is worth, but asks him instead, how many cows he 

 keeps, how many hogs he turns off a year, and how much his 

 cows produce. It is on this basis that a landlord values a tenant 

 over there. 



In this country, or at least it has been so in the past, if a 

 tenant wants to rent a piece of land, all the landlord is interest- 

 ed in, that is most landlords, is how much rental can this man 

 pay. He has given no thought or regard to the future of hi? 

 soil, or, in other words, he does not take into consideration how 

 much more or less his land is going to be worth when the tenant 

 gets through with it. I believe, however, that things are chang- 

 ing and that the desirable tenant will be based on the view which 

 the Dane takes of this matter. 



