The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-10-16

to cost though it may be- / have seen
American bacon exposed for sale
In the shops of London as cheap
as you could buy the same in Boston.
And / have seen Irish bacon, fed in the
Irish way, In which Indian corn was no
constituent part of the ration, and
smoked in the Irish way, with peat, and
sold In the English way at double the
price of American bacon. / was after
wards told that this Irish bacon was inn
ported from America via Queenstown,
and after being fumigated with good
dose Of Irish peat smoke was given
clean bill of health. That's reciprocity.
If the markets demand lean meats, then
let the packers meet the feeders of swine
half way and offer a higher price for
such animals. Fed on clover, alfalfa
and peas, and rounded up on cooked
food including roots but excluding corn,
the streak of fat and streak of lean hog
will doubtless be heard squealing for ad-
mlttance. As il Is, TO make the business
profitable, we must give the growing
stock the run of the pastures and round
them up for the market on corn. The
great bulk of the hogs raised in the great
central basin are fed in this manner, and
10 VI Gil ttfC ~ 49, 49,
slaughtered in the west are of the breed
that originated in Ohio some fifty years
ago. Do not understand me
to assert that out of every ten
millions of hogs slaughtered yearly that
six millions and odd thousands are
pure Poland Chinas. | do claim, howev-
er, that fully that proportion and more,
too, are Poland-Chinas and their crosses.
When it comes TO thoroughbred herds,
WEIGH are the nurseries for pTopOgating
the breeding stock, the prepOnderance of
the hog of the great central basin over ali
other breeds combined is marvellous. To
satisfy an idle curiosity, l recently took
o, casion to enum rate the herds adver-
tised in one of our leading swine journals.
The result is as follows: CheSires, i;
Tamworth, /; Victoria, 8; Essex, 5; Yol K
shire, Is; Duroc-Jerseys, Is; Chester
Whites. "a; Berkshire, q. Total, 80. Po-
land Chinas, POL.
In the hands of skillful breeders, guard
ed by the pedigree system, there is little
danger that the breed in its purity will
retrograde. There is, in my Judgment,
no room for improvement IN the breed as
a breed. That there is room for improve
ment in individual herds and In many
specimens of all herds goes without say
ing The greatest danger that threatens
the premanency of the Poland-China lies
in the direction of overproduction. In
this l allude strictly TO the overproduc-
ton of thoroughbreds for breeding pur-
poses, and the best remedy / know to
correct this tendency is by the free APP
plication of the knife. No greater pro-
portion than go per cent. of the young
boars produced should be allowed to
propagate their species. On my last
visit to the most noted breeder of Poland
Chinas in Ohio, l observed more than
thirty head of barrows and gifts in his
pens being fattened for the shambles,
and instead of creating distrust and
doubt in my mind as to the unerring
skill of this veteran breeder TO produce
animals of great merit, found myself
admiring the courage and conscientious
ness of the man who could have disposed
of every hoof at fancy price, but pre-
ferred to take no chances in disposing of
stock for breeding purposes which did
not commend themselves to his jndg
ment This breeders example followed
literally by the host of professional
breeders would raise not only the aver
age standard of our hog of the great CEN
trail basin, but would raise prices com
mensurate with qualifications.