Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-10-17
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"Hoaains" Corn With Stock

"Hogging" Corn With Stock
| To advise, or even intimate, some
years ago that corn could be advan-
tageously 'hogged down" by sheep
hogs or cattle, would have been risky
business, and ridiculed by almost every
up- to time farmer as a shiftless waste
Labor is scarcer than it was then
and how to get along without it is one
of the Invest questions on the farm
today, and all over the country we find
thrifty farmers doing many things
they never dreamed of when labor
was cheap and over plentiful.
We have often referred to the sue"
cessful sheep feeders in Nebraska and
elsewhere, who have made a signal
success of turning western sheep into
corn fields that had been sown to
rape Also to others who have done
equally we'll with hogs and cattle. In
the parts referred to the soil and
moisture were both inferior for this
purpose to nearly all of central and
western Dakota. There is more mud
and surplus moisture in a single fall
in some parts of eastern Nebraska
and Iowa, than there is in a whole
year in many parts of the Dakotas,
and still this hogging down business
is spreading far more rapidly in those
muddy sections than it Is in our own
country, where this way of feeding
when help is scarce, can be carried
on with much less waste than where
there is SO much moisture and mud.
Referring to this way of disposing OF
corn crop, L. S. Willard, Of Des
Moines, Iowa, writes the Homestead
as follows:
l have had little experience in
that line which / would like to give.
start with my spring pigs and then
later on with the rest of my hogs and
my fat cattle. have had field Of
corn near the barn which I always hog
down. I turn the hogs in and let
them clean up all the down corn and
work in the pumpkins; then when the
cattle are on full feed l let them in
over night, the hogs cleaning up all
the waste"
On the same subject H. P. Nichol-
son, OF Winnesheik county, Iowa,
writes:
Seeing an article in your issue Of
recent date in regard to hogging down
corn, and your request for the expert
ence of others, l will contribute the
experience l had last fall. We had an
outlook for the largest corn crop ever
raised in this section, but on August
16, a very destructive hail storm
of local size visited us and completely
destroyed the corn as far as making
a crop was concerned. 1t was mostly
in the milk stage with a few ears
starting to dent when the storm lew
eled nearly all Of it to the ground.
In some sheltered places few stalks
We're left standing; only the best was
gathered, but only yielded about thirty
bushels per acre, of very light corn.
This was fed to the pigs at the last
end, making them weigh little over
200 pounds, when sold January 1.
When considering that this corn was
all. or nearly ALL on the ground when
the stock were let into it, 1t was sur
prising how little was wasted Snow
and ice covered the ground from
Christmas until the last of February,
at which time the brood soWs, about
twenty five in number, began hunting
their living again, in preference to
what we had to offer. When we
plowed the ground in April and May
for corn, you could have carried all
the waste corn in a single basketful,
from the whole sixty-five acres.
consider under the circumstances this
was the easiest and most economical
way of gathering this crop and
firmly believe if one has a large drove
Of shoats, no better plan can be de-
vised than to let them help them
selves, providing they get all cleaned
up before snow flies.
My cattle were in good market con-