IRRIGATED FIELD CROPS FOR HOG PASTURING. 
29 
Table XIX. — Results secured by hogging com with supplementary feeds on the 
Scottsbluff Experiment Farm in 1914 an< ^ 1915. 
Items of comparison. 
Supplementary feeds. 
None. 
Alfalfa 
pasture. 
Tankage. 
Lots of hogs number. . 
Hogs per acre in each lot do 
Length of hogging period days. . 
Average initial weight per hog pounds. . 
Total gain per acre do 
Average daily gain per hog do 
Estimate of corn consumed per lOOpounds of gain do 
Tankage consumed per 100 pounds ol gain do 
4 
9 
66 
82 
744 
1.25 
524 
66 
82 
930 
1.57 
446 
66 
81 
1,029 
1.73 
405 
29 
It will be seen that the lots which received supplementary feed 
made more rapid gains and consumed less corn per unit of gain than 
those which received no supplements. Holden, 1 who first reported 
the results of this experiment, concluded that with the usual price 
for tankage, the use of that material as a supplement to hogged-off 
corn would be better than not to use any supplement, but that where 
the hogs could have access to alfalfa pasture it was doubtful whether 
it would pay to feed tankage. In any event the desirability of giving 
the hogs access to alfalfa pasture is apparent. At the time of year 
when corn is hogged off in irrigated districts, the growth of alfalfa 
is relatively slow, so that the small quantity of alfalfa which the 
hogs eat would otherwise be wasted in most instances. 
At the Huntley Experiment Farm, where rape, grown with the 
corn, has been tested as a supplement to hogged-off corn, no material 
effect on the rate or amount of gains has been observed. This might 
not be the case in sections where rape produces a heavy growth. It 
seems likely that in most irrigated sections access to an alfalfa field 
during the corn-hogging period will furnish a satisfactory supple- 
mentary feed for the hogs, particularly in view of the inexpensive- 
ness of this supplement. 
FIELD PEAS. 
Field peas have not been widely adopted as a hog feed on irrigated 
lands generally. The use of the crop for this purpose, however, has 
been sufficiently successful on individual farms in a large number of 
districts to indicate the high value of the crop as hog feed. Most 
of the difficulties encountered in attempts to use field peas in swine 
feeding have been production difficulties. As will be indicated later, 
widely varying results have been secured from hogging off peas in 
different fields in a single locality. These variations reflect the wide 
differences in the yields obtained by different farmers. The success- 
1 Holden, J. A. Experiment in disposal of irrigated crops through the use of hogs. 
Dept. Agr. Bui. 488, 25 p., 3 fig. 1917. 
