Raising Hogs in Colorado. 21 
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Field peas are seeded on unplowed ground in fields of 40 to 320 
acres. No further attention is given except to irrigate once or 
twice. The vines grow and bloom, and the pods fill until killed in 
the fall by frost, when they cure on the ground without being cut. 
Hogs are turned into the field, gather the crops, and when fat are 
shipped to market. 
It costs, including the rent of the land, from $3 to $6 an acre 
to raise peas, and feeders estimate an acre of good peas will put 
400 pounds of gain on hogs when pastured off. 
Sometimes the peas are harvested and stacked, and the un¬ 
threshed vines fed from the stack to hogs confined in yards. An 
acre of good peas fed in this way will put from 600 to 800 pounds of 
gain on hogs. 
A new method of harvesting field peas at a low cost has been 
lately developed. The frosted vines are left on the field until they 
become well cured, and are then gathered without being cut, with 
the bull rakes used in haying. Some vines are left where the bull 
rake is started in, but as soon as a full forkful gathers on the rake, 
the vines are taken up clean without shelling; when a load is gath¬ 
ered, the rake is driven to the stack and the vines placed on the 
stack with an ordinary hay stacker. Three teams and five men 
with this method, can gather and stack 2q acres a day at a cost 
not to exceed $1 an acre. 
The pork from hogs well fattened on peas is firm, sweet and 
tender, and has a most delicious flavor. The following figures show 
the actual cost per acre to a grower in the San Luis Valley: 
Seeding .$ .35 
Seed, 60 pounds at $1.75. 1.05 
Labor irrigating.25 
Water rent .08 
Rent of land. 3.00 
$4.73 
The crop was gathered and stacked, and the unthreshed vines 
fed to fattening hogs confined in a small lot. The hogs made a gain 
of over 700 pounds for each acre of peas consumed. 
Hogs fed peas alone fatten unevenly, some finishing quickly, 
while others gain, but become unthrifty, showing that a diet of this 
one grain does not agree with them. Denver packers report that one- 
half the pea-fed hogs marketed from the San Luis Valley in 1908 
were in an unfinished condition. 
There are three reasons for this: Peas is a concentrated feed, 
rich in protein, and feeding them alone to hogs is like giving a 
man beefsteak only. Where the leaves are eaten with the grain, 
they help dilute the feed, and it is profitable to feed barley or wheat 
