The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1914-04-30
Hogs and Humans.

A man down in southern Iowa the
other day sold { log out of his drove
for something like $500. That isn't a
record price for an Iowa hog by any
means. There have been higher
prices paid for hogs than $500 in this
state but it illustrates one wide diff
ference between prices and hogs CT
this day and generation and the
hogs some of us knew, and feared,
too, in the days when we were boys
and the grove and big woods were
hog lots for neighbOring farms.
The youth Of this day has never
seen genuine "prairic rOOter' or
"clm peeler." If he were to run
across one he would jump to the i'm
mediate conclusion that some menag
erie had lost its wart hog. There is
more difference between the old
fashioned swine and the present
porker than between the human hog
of an earlier generation and the cur
rent type Of the same genus.
An 'elm peelcr' was fearfully and
wonderfully made. His head began
back of his shoulders and ran out in
front like the v;"r beak of a fighting
ship. His helf was half of him. If
inches long, yellow with age and
like reversed yataghans from either
side of the lower jaw furnished an ar
mament that would disembowel a
horse at stroke. He was Of long
legged type and fleet as any racer.
His long snout driven by the lean
muscles behind it went through
prairie sod like breaking pillow. He
could hear and distinguish the sound
of the tin horn, that meant feeding
time in the fall when the acorns had
vanished and it was necessary to feed
a little corn to get the herd ready
for market. over miles and miles of
woodland and cover the distance be-
tween himself and the feeding place
at pace tina. Dan Patch never
dreamed of. He was born in the
woods behind log in litter of
leaves, his mother was as dangerous
at this period as she bear. And
when he had matured, which reQuir-
ed three years, he stood high at the
shoulders and low at the hams and
was as handsome and prolific of
meat as fence rail. 1t took the lard
from three prairie rOOters to furnish
enough grease to fry one in. The
breed was prolific and hardy. Some
times litter of twenty or more was
brought forth and the hog cholera
germ with nerve to tackle prairie
rooter had not been invented. We
rounded them up sometimes along in
the fall and drove them to market.
Some of them broke away and got
back into the woods but a hog or two
didn't count much then. 1t was day
of fences built of six inch boards and
the highway held them pretty we'll
and headed them toward town.
They wasn't worth much, So a
hundred was a pretty fair price for
elm peelers. But they didn't cost
much. They ran half wild all sum-
mer and we fed them little 20 cent
corn and got rid of them as soon as
possible after snow fell. And strange
as it may seem IL was harder to pay
off on $25 an acre land with those
| hogs than to lift the mortgage on
5000 land with the kind OF swine
the man got $500 for the other day
down at Shenandoah.
We have bred a lot of class into
our hogs since the prairie rooter.
Things have changed in other ways
Men are improving too and Of late
we are beginning to take somewhat
of the interest in men and the breed
| ing of men that we have devoted to
bringing the old fashioned razorback
up to the $500 variety. Who knows
but that within a few generations We
shall not have produced a breed Of
humans as far advanced over the
razorback as the thoroughbred swine
of this day exceeds the elm peelers
that grandfather wasted corn on
| Marshalltown Times-Republican