Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1910-05-17

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South st. Paul market it is next to inn
possible to find any piggy sows being
offered for sale. About the only sows
| being offered are those that have
about ended their days of usefulness
in the breeding pen and these are only
being sold from herds that have
younger sows ready to take their
place. The demand for brood sows
throughout the country has been so
strong that even the high prices were
no inducement for selling the sows on
the open market. There are instances
where grade sows have brought $40
per head at. farm sales, and every
breeder of pure-bred hogs has sold
clean out of brood sows and at highly
satisfactory prices. The men who are
paying these prices are the same ones
that sold their sows and quit the hog
business two years ago. 1t is always
the same old story of everybody rush
ing into the business when prices are
high, and rushing out when they are
low: and it is the presence of exactly
such people that will always cause
sharp fluctuations in the prices of
pork and other farm products.
While prophesies regarding future
values are always worthless, it remains
certain that high level of prices will
be maintained until another big sup
ply of hogs is ready for market. This
supply is easier to produce than any
other class of farm live stock. With
cattle and horses it takes from three
to five years to produce a crop of mar
ketable age. With hogs, a man can
purchase a sow and have her pigs
ready for market inside of twelve
months While this years hog crop
will no doubt be much larger than that
of last year, it is hardly likely that the
recent shortage can be converted in
to an over-supply in a single year.
However, if present prices maintain
for another year, the crop of 1911 is
likely to be a record breaker. No man
who has a good crop of spring pigs
this year should worry about not get
ting well paid for them.
Steady Production Best.
The statement will bear repetition,
that the man who makes good money
in the hog business is the one who
raises as many as he can handle prop
erly every year. The average farmer
must have some livestock, and the hog
is about the easiest and cheapest to
handle. The man who sells his hogs
every time the prices of grain gets
high does not show good business
judgment. 1t is estimated that man
can feed fifty-cent corn to fve-cent
hogs and make money, and with good
hogs the spread in prices can be even
wider When speaking of this topic,
many farmers are inclined to charge
every bushel of corn fed to the hogs
at top market price, when as a matter
of fact, only about ten bushels in a
thousand would grade number one or
anything like it. On the other hand,
good hogs will take mighty poor corn
and make it into top-price pork. Be
sides, there will be found on nearly
every farm a lot of poor grain of var
ious kinds that would never find a
market at all except through the hog
crop. 1t is a safe assertion that there
is not more than one year in ten that
grain is so high in price that it cannot
be fed profitably to good hogs TAX
ing the average for any period of ten
years and the man who raises and
markets a good hog crop every year
will be way ahead of the grain farmer.
From a financial standpoint this is a
poor season in which to embark in the
hog business, but if you do start, don't
sell out the first time that prices go
down and wait for another period of
high prices in order to buy back. Give
the old sow a steady job on your farm;
feed her and her pigs literally and she
will be one of the best money makers
in your possession.-The Farmer.