172 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph from Department of Agriculture 

 GROOMING A PIG FOR TIIF, STATE PAIR 



Eight years ago, before the inauguration of the pig-club movement in the South, most of 

 the hogs in that section of the United States were of the razor-back variety — the kind which 

 is so thin and scrawny that a wag has declared the farmer can prevent its going through a 

 hole in his fence by tying a knot in its tail. 



sive palmetto shrub tracts, was the only 

 type of pig familiar to the farmer. To- 

 day blooded swine are the rule rather 

 than the exception, and it is a high tribute 

 to the educational value of the boys' pig 

 clubs that of the four States — Missis- 

 sippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Delaware — 

 reporting an increase in swine popula- 

 tion on September i, 1917, over the same 

 date in 19 16, Mississippi and Georgia 

 stand second and third in pig-club enroll- 

 ment. These two States reported an in- 

 crease of 90,000 hogs, while the country 

 at large showed a decrease of 5,000,000. 

 One of the strongly emphasized slo- 

 gans of the pig-club organizers and su- 

 pervisors is that it does not pay to raise 

 a poor hog. On the other hand, the 

 profits to be derived from pure-bred pigs 

 are exceptionally large, considering the 

 amount of capital invested. This preach- 

 ment not only has had its immediate ef- 



fect in pig-club communities, where ex- 

 ample has taken the place of precept, but 

 it is causing the farmer to awaken to the 

 fact that his son and his daughter are 

 proving more efficient than he, simply be- 

 cause they are taking advantage of the 

 information which has been gained by 

 experts and specialists through years of 

 experimentation and research. 



THE; "PRACTICAL," PARMER VS. TH£ PIG- 

 CPUB MPMBER 



The "theorists," as the college-trained 

 agriculturists were once called, are no 

 longer scorned by the "practical" farmer, 

 whose "practicality" is seen in a very 

 unenviable light when he is compelled to 

 admit that it takes two years for his 

 range-reared hog to acquire a weight of 

 150 pounds, while a pig-club member, 

 like young Walter Whitman, of Indiana, 

 presents as an exhibit his pet Duroc, 



