58 BULLETIX 648. TJ. S. DEPABTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Xext to feeds, the largest item of cost is that of man labor, equal- 
ing nearly 10 per cent of the gross costs, followed by the Interest 
charge, and others of minor importance. The average number of 
hog units 1 on each farm was 77 and the cost per pound of live- 
weight gain 2 was 5.1 cents. Ten of these 55 farms suffered losses 
from hog cholera, which, of course, increased the cost per pound of 
the remaining hogs. On the 45 farms free from such losses the 
average cost per pound was 4.7 cents. 
The manure credit that has been deducted from the gross cost 
represents the estimated value of the residual fertilizing effect of 
the peanuts pastured off by the hogs. It is the consensus of opinion 
held by these farmers, based on experience, that the peanut crop 
grown and harvested from the soil is as severe a drain on soil fer- 
tility as is the growing of a crop of corn. Manifestly, then, any 
fertilizing value of peanuts "hogged off." is the value due to the 
method of harvesting, and as such should be a credit to the hogs and 
not to the peanuts. The average of a large number of estimates 3 
places this fertilizer value due to the method of harvesting at $1.50 
per acre of " solid " peanuts " hogged off," and at 75 cents per acre 
cf peanuts and corn. Upon this basis the credits to the hogs have 
been calculated and entered as a manure credit. 
Of special significance is the large proportion of the cost repre- 
sented by pasture crops, especially peanuts. Undoubtedly herein 
lies the secret of profitable swine production in Brooks County. 
Cost of slaughtering and curing swine. — It has long been the prac- 
tice of the farmers of Brooks County to slaughter their hogs at 
home. Eecently, however, a packing plant has been erected in an 
adjoining county, affording a ready market for live stock. Since 
the farmers now have the choice of selling their hogs on foot or of 
doing the slaughtering at home and marketing the resulting prod- 
ucts, it is of interest to know the cost of killing and curing at home. 
These costs are shown in Table XXIII. On the farms that killed 
an average of 2,764 pounds of live hogs the cost amounted to 87 cents 
per hundred pounds of live weight, but on the farms that slaughtered 
16,395 pounds each the cost was reduced by nearly one-half, or to 
1 A hog unit is a mature hog maintained on the farm during the year, or the equiva- 
lent of a 200-pound hog grown during the year. Immature hogs slaughtered or on hand 
at the end of the year wore reduced to hog units by dividing the total live weight by 200 
pounds. 
2 The live-weight gain includes the weight of all hogs sold and slaughtered, and aDy 
differences in the weights of all hogs on the farms at the beginning and ending of the 
farm year. 
3 In getting these estimates the farmers were asked, first, how much more rent they 
would be willing to pay for the use of Brooks County land on which either peanuts or 
peanuts and corn had been grown the previous year than they would for similar land that 
had produced a crop of corn : second, how much less fertilizer, measured by value, they 
would apply to a crop of cotton planted on land that had produced peanuts or peanuts 
and corn than on land following corn. The replies gave a wide range of estimates, the 
average of which is given above. 
