The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-01-26
DESPISED HOG
 IN HIS PROPER PLACE IN SUN
Pork Now Forms More Than One Half of All Meat Pro
 ducts of the Country.

At last the despised hog has come into his own! Never before has he been able to stand up and look the world in the face, and claim his proper place in the sun. This doesn't refer to the German variety, but to the plain American pig, and to his real value in the economy of this country. It may not be generally known that pork makes up more than one-haIf of all the meat produced in the United States, and for the laboring classes, it constitutes the mainstay of their ration. Our farmers eat practically nothing else, and to the hog must be credited, in one form or another, most of the energy finally expended through the muscles of our laboring man. The slogan is, and will probably remain Food Will Win the War" If so. the despised hog l must have his share in the credit One of his chief contributions will be in the form of pork fats, which are ab- solutely essential, and which have | been almost swept from the commer- | cial and table use of the Central em- pires.
 The cry ought to go forth all over the land: Raise More Hogs" In | 1916, the number of hogs in this country fell off overa five million. | Meanwhile, during 1917, our exports | increased five hundred million pounds, and this was all pork, and does not include lard. We have gar den clubs and Thrift Stamp clubs, and many other kinds of organiza- tion to meet the national necessity, | but we need a wide spread campaign | for hog clubs. Hogs require less la Dor, less equipment and less capital, and make greater gains per cwt. of food fed to them, and give a quicker return than any other kind of live stock, with the single exception of poultry. Hogs also permit of very rapid increase in number, for they reproduce more quickly than any other meat animal The hog is also 1 the most economical animal to feed. This statement can be proven even against the self-supporting sheep, while on the question of care, the hog entirely outclasses the sheep in i the case with which he may be I handled.
 The map of the United States on hog production shows that New Eng land is sadly lacking in producing her share. In fact, the average num- Der of hogs produced in New Eng
 land is only two per a farm. This ought not to be, and the New Eng land farm ought to respond to the national demand for an increased | hoo titled the mortgage lifter," because he saves the waste, and utilizes the material round the farm which could not be otherwise used.
 However. the greatest increase should come from the cities. It costs Bridgeport and hundreds of other cities thousands of dollars each an- nually to collect and dispose of their garbage, and yet it has been found in actual practice that thousands of pige can be practically supported from the garbage otherwise disposed of in incinerating plants which are | expensive to run, and in war times, might be classified as unnecess~. Statistics have just been collected and published, which makes very interesting contribution to the war education In the cities which feed their garbage to hogs, the cost is II cents per inhabitant for the garbage removed, while in the other cities, which burn or bury their garbage, the cost is 33 cents per capita. Bridge port ought to get into line and have a farm of thousands of hogs, dispos- ing of our garbage, which if carefully run would cut the city expense for this item, by three, and at the same time, add thousands of pounds to the much needed pork production of the country. She also ought to set up campaign to increase the number of hogs raised upon the thinly settled
 outskirts of the city as war meas ure, as we'll as a profitable invest ment on the part of those entering upon this venture.