Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1914-04-15
HOGS AND HUMANS.


the other day sold hog out of his
drove for something like $500. That
isn't 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 differ
ence between prices and hogs of 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 We're hog lots for neighbor-
ing farms.
The youth of this day has never seen
genuine prairie rooter" or elm
peeler.' If he We're to run across one
he would jump to the immediate con-
clusion that some menagerie 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 current type of the same
genus.
An elm peeler" was fearfully and
wonderfully made. His head began
back of his shoulders and ran out in
front like the war beak Of a fighting
ship. His head was half Of him. If he
was a patriarch 'tushes' six inches
long. yellow with age and sharp and
| yataghans from either side of the low
er jaw furnished an armament that
would disembowel a horse at a stroke.
He was of a long legged type and feet
as any racehorse. His long snout driv
en- by the lean muscles behind it went
! thru prairie sod like breaking pillow.
He could hear and distinguish the sound
i of the tin horn, that meant feeding time
| in the fall when the acorns had van
| ished and it was necessary to feed a
| little corn to get the herd ready for
market, over miles and miles of wood:
land and cover the distance between
himself and the feeding place at a
pace that 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 a she bear.
And when he had matured, which re-
the shoulders and low at the hams
and was as handsome and prolific Of
meat as a fence rail. 1t took the lard
from three prairie rooters to furnish
grease enough to fry one in. The breed
was prolific and hardy. Sometimes a
litter of twenty or more was brought
forth and the hog cholera germ with
nerve to tackle a prairie rooter had
not been invented. We rounded them
up sometimes along in the fall and
drove them to market. Some Of them
woods but a hog or two didn't count
much then. 1t was day Of fences
built Of six inch boards and the high
way held them pretty vii and headed
them toward town.
They wasn't worth much, SO a
hundred was a pretty fair price for elm
peelers But then they didn't cost much
They ran half wild all summer and we
fed them a little 20 cent corn and got
rid of them as soon as possible after
snow fell. And strange as it may seen
it was harder to pay off on s25 ar
acre land with those hogs than to lift
the mortgage on 5000 land with thu
kind of swine the man got $500 for the
other day down at Shenandoah.
We have bred a lot of class into oul
hogs since the prairie rooter. Thing:
} have changed in other ways. Men arr
! improving too and of late We are be
ginning to take somewhat of the inter
| est in men and the breeding Of meE
that we have devoted to bringing th'
, old fashioned razorback up to the 500
, variety. Who knows but that within
, few generations we shall not have
produced a breed of humans as far ad
vanced over the razorback as tn
thoroughbred swine of this day exceeds
i the elm peelers that grandfather vast
, ed corn on?