UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
f BULLETIN No. 1086 | 
si&^Wu 
Washington, D. C. 
October, 1922 
SHRINKAGE OF SOFT PORK UNDER COMMERCIAL 
CONDITIONS. 1 
By L. B. Burk. Investigator in Marketing Live Stock and Meats, Live Stock, Meats, 
and Wool Division, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Causes of soft and oily pork 2 
Tests on a commercial scale 3 
Plan of experiment 4 
Methods of handling the meat 5 
Results 7 
Page. 
The true difference in the oily, soft, and firm 
pork 9 
Prices of the three grades of meat compared . . 12 
Summary 13 
Appendix 15 
During the past 10 years the swine industry of the South has 
developed very rapidly. With this development has come an 
increased production of soft and oily pork. Until comparatively 
recent years it was thought that acorns (or mast) was the principal 
feed that caused soft or oily meat, but when the southern farmers 
began growing peanuts in large quantities for feed and harvesting 
them by hogging them down, there was a rapid increase in the number 
of southern hogs that yielded soft or oily pork. This kind of pork 
increased enormously, because peanut-fed hogs made profitable 
gains and the peanut crop could be thus harvested without material 
labor cost or waste. The crop diversification that followed the 
extremely low price for cotton at the beginning of the World War 
caused the southern farmers to adopt more largely the peanut and 
hog combination. This was found to be so profitable that peanut 
1 This report is the result of a study undertaken by the Bureau of Markets in 1919 for the purpose of 
ascertaining the causes for differences in the market prices of firm, soft, and oily hogs. Since this work was 
begun, special appropriations have been made available to the Bureau of Animal Industry for the study 
of the soft pork problem, which will make possible a much more comprehensive study of the causes of soft 
pork and their prevention. 
Mention should be made of the valuable assistance rendered by Mr. E. V. Baker at Fort Worth, Tex., 
and by Mr. E. K. Hess at East St. Louis, 111., in conducting these tests at the packing plants: also by Mr. 
Clarence T. Marsh, laboratory inspector in charge, St. Louis, Mo., who made the melting-point and iodine- 
number determinations. 
103756—22 1 
