BULLETIN 1440, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE 
to the future, and hence generally do just the reverse; and (3) tho ; 
who keep practically uniform production regaruiess of price. 
HOG PRICES BY YEARS 
DOLLARS 
PER CWT. 
1890 
1895 
1900 
1905 
1910 
1915 
1920 
1925 
Fig. 1.— Average yearly price of heavy hogs at Chicago, 1890 to 1925. Though there has been 
a steady upward trend in price, individual years show wide deviations 
The records of three farmers in Indiana, shown in Figure 2, illus 
trate these three ways of adjustment. 
The first farmer changed his breeding herd from year to year, ii 
response to future prices. One year he fed out three times as many 
hogs as he did another year. In five of the seven years shown, he 
NUMBER OF SOWS FARROWING 
15 
FARM No. 2 
5 10 
15 
FARM No. 3 
5 10 
NUMBER OF HOGS FED OUT 
FARM No.l FARM No. 2 
50 100 150 50 100 150 
FARM No. 3 
50 100 150 
1913- 
1914- 
1915- 
1916- 
1917- 
1918- 
1919- 
I 1 1 j uji BHS— 
Fig. 2.— Changes in the hog enterprise on three Indiana farms. Farmer 2 maintained a steady pro- 
duction; farmer 1 guessed prices right most of the time; farmer 3 usually guessed wrong 
had more hogs to sell when prices were high compared with corn, 
or fewer to sell when prices were low compared with corn. 
