4 The Colorado Experiment Station. 
* 
western Nebraska and western Kansas. Shipments of fresh pork 
are made every week throughout the year to Denver from Kansas 
City and Omaha, the average being two to three cars weekly. Ex¬ 
perts in the meat business estimate that there are shipped annually 
from packing houses in the corn belt to Rocky Mountain territory 
and the Northwest, of which Denver is the gateway, pork and 
pork products worth from $12,000,000 to $16,000,000. 
One hundred thousand hogs are needed each month in Denver 
territory to supply the demand for pork and pork products. 
THE HOG THE COLORADO MARKET WANTS. 
The Colorado packer wants a well-finished, fat, blocky hog 
weighing alive from 220 to 250 pounds. During the winter 
months there is a good, but limited demand for the city whole car¬ 
cass trade, for well-finished hogs weighing alive from 150 to 175 
pounds each. 
Hogs weighing alive 220 to 250 pounds each, will supply 
cured hams weighing 16 to 18 pounds, and sides of bacon weighing 
10 to 12 pounds each. These weights command a premium of 
75 cents per hundred pounds above lighter hams and sides. 
Well finished hogs, only, are wanted. The hog should be well 
fattened and rounded out, the flesh coming well down on the 
hocks, and the fat on the sides should be from 1 to 1*4 inches 
thick. In a finished hog the flesh will be firm and hard to the 
touch, and the hair will be smooth and lustrous. 
The flesh should be firm, the fat pure white, and the best 
consumers want a good proportion of lean. 
Most of the Colorado hogs marketed in the past three years 
have been unfinished and too light in weight. A well finished hog 
will dress 80 per cent.; the average at the Denver packing houses 
in 1908 was 73 per cent. 
The chief trouble has been that most Colorado farmers neg¬ 
lect their hogs through the summer, stunting them, and stunted 
hogs do not finish well. An unfinished, stunted hog weighing 
150 pounds, will dress about 65 per cent. Bacon from such hogs 
sells at wholesale for one-half that from finished hogs. The bacon 
from the unfinished, light hogs, when cooked, consists of skin and 
flabby, soft meat, and the consumer is dissatisfied. 
The flesh on the live, unfinished hog is soft and flabby to the 
touch, and the hair has a dead appearance. The meat from an 
unthrifty hog is always soft, and that from thin hogs is usually soft. 
A common fault is uneven quality in a shipment, some hogs 
being of good weight and well fattened, and others small or thin. 
Unless the demand is pressing, a car load of mixed hogs will sell 
for the price which the poorest are worth. 
