Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-01-13
END OF OLD PORK RATIO
Alfalfa Pasture Wrecks the Ancient
Io=to=I Valuation of the
FatteHed Hog.
THE PIG A PROFITABLE PRODUCT
Porkers Never So High and Likely
to Be Higher Yet-Farmers
Scorn the Price of Corn.

I
| middle west has gone to join in the
| limbo of the dead the belief that is
| to 1 was just right as between silver
! and gold and also that the price of
| wheat was indissolubly linked with
| that of silver. The third one to de-
part was the 10 to l ratio between the
| price of hogs and the price of corn,
| says a writer in the New York Sun.
For good many years it was figured
| that in order to come out even the
man who fattened hogs for market
| must get cents a pound when corn
was selling at 80 cents, 6 cents when
corn was so, and so on. Experiment
| has demonstrated that with corn at so
| cents and a big lot of alfalfa ready
at hand to be judiciously fed the grow
| ing porkers a pound of pork will cost
about 315 cents.
In view of the fact that hogs have
been bringing s7.25 at the home mar
| ket and have been both higher and
| lower within a dollar range for more
| than a year, some light may be thrown
| upon the exodus of the dollars from
| the city to the farm in contradistinc-
ton to the exodus of the farmers chill
! dren from the farm to the city.
The average hog ready for market
weighs about i22O pounds. At $40 a
hundred this means nearly SIG for
each animal. Most of these are raised
as a side line on farms and on ranches,
following cattle, where they are almost
a clear profit, but on the hog ranches
as high as 5000 are marketed year,
but half that number is nearer the
average. Some hogs go as high as
$50. Selling an animal for SIG that
cost to raise only about So or 50 is
a very profitable business, especially if
one can market 1000 hogs a year
Some of the big packing concerns are
engaged in hog raising on large scale,
not only in order to get two profits
but to keep their establishments run
| ming when there is shortage of ship
ments
Much of the new money in hogs
comes from alfalfa. Tests showing the
feeding values prove that alfalfa is
| worth As per cent more than timothy,
and one acre of it will pasture thirty
hogs for six months.
The United States is the largest pro-
Queer of hogs in the world. Americans
are essentially pork-eating people.
About 40 per cent of the worlds hogs
are marketed in this country and more
pork is produced here than in Russia,
Germany and Austria combined. Ear
| ly maturity has had a great deal to
do with increase in pork eating The
| packers are calling all the time for
young hogs to slaughter, just as they
want beef cattle that mature early.
The eighteen-month-old hog, once the
staple Of the market, is being pushed
out by the six-month feeder and farm
ers were quick to see that it was poor
business to feed a hog for the longer
period when he got better price,
pound for pound, for those fed from
four to six months.
Hogs get clean sleeping places every
night. In feeding pens one often finds
a system Of pipes that carry the water
and' liquid food from a central place
of deposit in quantities sufficient to
| nourish and SO distribute it that there
is no overlooking. Some of the most
| modern hog pens are provided with a
patented trough that does not permit
| the pig to be so ill-mannered as to
put his feet into the trough at any
time.
Up till as late as four or five years
ago cholera, the deadliest enemy to
| profitable hograising, was deemed in
durable. The scientists have studied
| long over the problem and in most 10.
| calities they have convinced the older
| and stubborn advocates of the theory
! that cholera could not be cured or pre-
| vented that they have found the germ
as we'll as a way to kill it and prevent
| contamination. AS a result a good
many hog-cholera mixture firms that
| did a thriving business for years are
winking out after q career the scien-
fists say was profitable mostly to them
| selves.