1920.] Pig Feeding and Pork Production. 



341 



most marked. The great reduction in the number of pigs 

 kept from 191 5 onwards can most probably be accounted for 

 (i) by the increasing difficulty in securing supplies of food for 

 them, and (2) by the widely prevalent idea that the high prices 

 of pig meal and millers' offals made the production of pork 

 economically unsound. In spite of the high prices for the raw 

 material in the manufacture of pork, the writer has found in 

 nearly all the cases investigated by him that the keeping of 

 pigs, even in the later years of the War, could be made and was 

 actually made a very profitable business. Now that feeding 

 stuffs are more readily obtainable, and prices have fallen, it is 

 to be hoped that full advantage will be taken of the improved 

 situation, and that our output of pork, bacon and ham will be 

 increased, so that we may be able more nearly to satisfy our 

 own demands and to diminish imports. When the control 

 price of pork was raised from 21s. to 23s. per live weight score, 

 any doubts as to making a commercial success of a well- 

 managed herd of pigs must have been set at rest. 



Pigrt on a Yorkshire Farm. — In these circumstances it was 

 thought that the actual detailed records of the receipts and 

 expenditure in connection with the management of pigs on a 

 Yorkshire farm of just over 300 acres, during the year ist 

 April, 1918, to 30th March, 1919, might be of interest. The 

 Department of Agriculture of Leeds University has for some 

 time past been engaged in investigations into the cost of 

 production of milk, pork, beef, mutton, crops and other farm 

 products on a number of farms throughout the county, in- 

 cluding its own experimental farm at Garforth. On these 

 farms detailed valuations of the live and dead stock are made 

 at the beginning and end of each financial year, either by a 

 professional valuer or by a member of the staff of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in conjunction with the farmer himself. 



On the farm in question, the 73 pigs in stock on ist April, 

 1 918, were valued by a professional valuer at £341. This 

 number included i boar, 20 breeding sows and gilts, 21 stores 

 and young gilts, and 31 sucking pigs. On 30th March, 1919, 

 there were on the farm i boar, 22 breeding sows and gilts, 4 

 fattening pigs, 30 stores and young gilts, and 4 sucking pigs. 

 These were valued by the same valuer at £614. 



Records of all the farms under investigation are kept in a 

 detailed Cash Book, showing receipts and expenditure in con- 

 nection with the stock. These records showed that on the farm 

 in question 92 pigs were sold during the year for a gross return 

 of £911 3s. Sd. Arrangements have been made for the whole 



