Great Falls weekly tribune., 1895-01-18
market finally wants and is willing to
E<,r


pay a good price for.
Such farmer keeps sheep, too; and
keeps them chiefly for the manure and
their faculty Of devouring such weeds
and vegetation as no other stock will rid
his farm of; but, prudent man that he
is, he proposes to make the most he can
of fleece and carcass, SO he buys some
quick maturing, heavy bodied, medium
tine, long wooled sheep and takes good
care of them.
He figures that the benefit sheep are
to farm by enrichment, etc, just about
pays for their keeping, and the fleece
and mutton is net gain, 80 the heavier
and better these are the greater his gain.
Like the steers, he holds his mutton and
wool for the market and gets good prices.
Horses, the successful farmer has little
use for, save to breed a supply for service
on the farm, for what they would con-
sumo he can easily put to better use.
The successful farmer believes in good
fences, and lots of them, and makes
them as soon as he can afford them in
order to cut up his farm into small lots,
SO he can turn stock into them whenever
be wishes to without interfering with
other fields. And he puts the finishing
touch to his ever bearing farm success
with pigs and finds this the most profit
able and interesting branch Of his farm
industry, for it calls into play his best
attention and skill in bringing his pigs
quickly and cheaply ready for market,
for he has found that six months pork
is the cheapest made and brings the best
price. SO he selects some large framed
quick maturing breed, or cross between
two desirable breeds as the foundation
of this enterprise, for he knows
that the greatest weight in the least
time is the point to aim at. Then
he goes at it right end too
Here in Montana he finds he can raise
two crops of pigs per SOW each year by
having the first litter come on before
March 15. which he can safely do by
providing warm, roomy quarters for his
abundance of roots for his principal feed
he was qaick to discover that ali grain
food would ruin his pigs, and that if he
cooked his roots, mashed them and
stirred in about % per cent of meal,
barley, or wheat, increasing the per cent
of meal as the pigs got older, he could
safely give them all they would eat at
time, and that this food was cheapest
for the weight made. When the pigs
are four mouths old he begins to have
some early peas to give them in lieu ef
roots that are now up, and soon early
sweet corn comes on, stalk and all,
IL the market is very good he now sifts
out those that will dress 100 pounds and
sells them at a figure that would buy a
80 pound pig in October, and saves both
labor and feed by doing so.
He soon learned batter than to give
grain or coarse meal to hogs or cattle
dry; but soaks it until it has expanded
all it will and has become soft. He
finds, too. ,hat he saves money by grind
ing all hls grain, except for sheep. Wind
power feed mills are now cheap. Our
successful farmer watches closely tho
results of feeding different grains, and
differently prepared, in order to avoid
waste by under.feeding over-feeding, or
bad digestion, for here he finds the spig
got that is most likely to leak out much
Of his justly earned profits.
The successful farmer quickly learns
the danger of overfeeding pigs with
grain. He learns too to 80 feed them
that inside of 200 days he can put them
on the market weighing on an average
200 pounds dressed. but does not hold
them for that weight il he can sell them
at good price when weighing one-half
as much.
BY Sept. ID his spring pigs are all
closed out, and by Oct. his fall litters
are getting into hand. With the warm
quarters he has provided these do even
better than his spring cror, as he has
more time to push them along, and they
will average heavier when he markets
them.
The successful farmer does not allow
his sows to have pigs under year old,
nor does he keep "a SOW that will not ay-
erage ten pigs each litter-that is, twenty
per year-with the care he gives her
The successful farmer will keep a
sharp eye on the good wife's pin money
sources, and provides her with some good
poultry and good warm quarters for
Them and soon finds that there is more
profit per hen in keeping so hens we'll
than there is in keeping 800 or even 200
equally well, and can easily explain the
why OF it if asked to do 30.
Now, sirs. having briefly touched upon
the leading strings necessary to the sue
cessful farmers bow. if he will make his
farm an ''ever- blooming" and 'ever
bearing" one, will say that no country
with which ] am acquainted offers such
resources and possibilities to the intel
ligent, industrious farmer. as does the
farm lands tributary to this city.