THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



171 



sion of the commissary army in 191 7 — an 

 army whose total strength (corn clubs, 

 potato clubs, poultry clubs, sheep clubs, 

 calf clubs, and canning clubs) was well 

 over half a million. 



This year an army of one million is 

 needed. It must be a volunteer, not a 

 conscript, army, and the age limit is from 

 10 to 18 years. Recruits will not be con- 

 fined to the farm districts ; enlistments are 

 equally desirable from towns, villages, 

 and the suburbs of our great cities. 



What has been accomplished by Amer- 

 ica's youthful commissary army is a story 

 of surprising and stimulating interest, an 

 incentive to redoubled effort during the 

 next nine months, when every ounce of 

 meat produced, every bushel of grain, 

 every can of vegetables, every pound of 

 wool, will have a direct and potent bear- 

 ing upon the length and conduct of the 

 war. 



POPULAR PREJUDICE: WITHOUT 

 FOUNDATION 



Just as the aviation service, more than 

 any other branch of the army or navy, 

 exercises an irresistible appeal to young 

 Americans eager to join the fighting 

 forces of the United States, so the pig 

 clubs are exercising a peculiarly strong 

 appeal to the boys and girls of the coun- 

 try. The result will not be transitory and 

 for the immediate necessities only. In 

 fact, the direct and indirect effects of the 

 pig-club movement throughout the South, 

 where it originated less than eight years 

 ago, have been so salutary that the United 

 States Government, even before the 

 emergencies brought about by the war, 

 inaugurated a widespread campaign to 

 encourage and promote the extension of 

 the work. 



One of the first and most essential 

 steps to be taken in the effort to increase 

 the number of pig fanciers and enthusi- 

 asts is a campaign of education to disa- 

 buse the public mind as to the habits and 

 nature of pigs. Few domestic animals 

 have been so persistently maligned and 

 with so little reason. 



Instead of being the unclean, insanitary 

 creature almost universally depicted, it is 

 the testimony of those who know the pig 

 best that it is one of the cleanliest of 



animals, surpassing the dog in this re- 

 spect. It is true that many towns have 

 ordinances which prohibit the keeping of 

 pigs within their corporate limits, but 

 these restrictions have been the out- 

 growth of the carelessness and negligence 

 with which pigsties have been tended in 

 the past. When given the same care 

 which customarily is observed in keeping 

 the stalls of horses and cows in proper 

 condition, pigsties are far more sanitary 

 and less odoriferous. A pig, given a bed 

 of straw, will keep it clean, in striking 

 contrast to the habits of horses and cows 

 in stalls. 



Those who appreciate the value and 

 importance of the "keep a pig" movement 

 and are anxious to foster the substitution 

 of pigs for dogs as pets have begun cam- 

 paigns in many communities to procure a 

 modification of town ordinances which 

 will permit the raising of a pig or pigs 

 on premises where careful sanitary regu- 

 lations are strictly observed. 



There are more than 10,000,000 boys 

 and girls in the United States between the 

 ages of 10 and 18 years. It is an ex- 

 tremely reasonable ambition on the part 

 of the Department of Agriculture to en- 

 list one-tenth of this number into active 

 service as food-producers, supplementing 

 and cooperating with the farmers and the 

 housewives in their essential labor of in- 

 creasing the supplies so vitally needed in 

 the present emergency. 



THE BEGINNING OP PIG CLUBS 



It was in the fall of 1910, in Caddo 

 Parish, Louisiana, that a rural schools 

 superintendent, E. W. Jones, originated 

 and organized the first boys' pig club. It 

 was a modest beginning, with 59 boys, 

 who were in a quandary as to the best 

 method of disposing of the crops which 

 they had harvested in their corn-club ac- 

 tivities. The pioneer pig-club promoter 

 conceived the idea of affording the boys 

 an opportunity of realizing a profit not 

 only on their corn crops, but a feeder's 

 profit on the grain as well. 



When this movement began a pure- 

 bred pig was a rarity in the South. The 

 "razor-back," shifting for itself in the 

 pine barrens and leading a "root-hog-or- 

 die" existence while ranging over exten- 



