Evening star., 1942-06-25
Increase in Number
0fPigs Called Vital
War Development
10000, 900 Extra Hogs
Will Supply Allies With
Vitomin-Rich Food
By THOMAS r. HENRY.

BY IHOMAS N. hENnI.
There are approximately 10000 900 !
extra little pigs on American farms |
this year.
That makes close to 100000
altogether. They will convert close /
to $4,000 900 bushels of corn. wheat,
oats and other feed stocks into ham,
lard. chops and bacon.
Now most Of them are hungry,
squeezing and blissfully unconscious
Of their stern duty to eat, grow
stupidity fat and die In what is fun
damentally the greatest battle Of the
present war.
Most pigs are born in the early
spring. from late January through
March. They come into the world
with about the top levels of intelli-
gence below man and the great apes,
but soon degenerate through some
hereditary glandular abnormality
into grain eating, Tat producing
automatons.
Roughly 10 bushels of corn makes
100 pounds of pig. The Government
Is largely responsible for the in
crease in their number by fixing
minimum of SO hundred pounds,
which makes it profitable to raise
them. The chief food is corn. Much
wheat, however, now is used and
great deal more will be fed. Depart
ment Of Agriculture officials believe,
with farm legislation now pending.
Good Source of Thiamin.
The battle in which the pigs must
die is the battle of feeding the
Allies and later, probably, the whole
world Corn and wheat are bulky.
Pork takes much less shipping space
a unit of nutritive value. More
over, the growing pig has the ability
to take the essential proteins and
vitamins out of grains and convert
them to more concentrated forms
better adapted for human consump-
ton. Lean pork. for example, is one
vitamin, thiamin.
Great Britain alone needs urgently
q billion pounds of lard. Russia is
crying for it. The United States
probably will consume another bill
lion POUNDS. So far aS Euro>e =
concerned. the fate of the little pigs
Is bound up intimately with the
better fortune of some distant r2la-
tives, the whales of the Antarctic
Ocean. Lard must take the place of
whale oil. of which enormous guam
titles formerly were used. War has
prevented the customary operations
OF the British and Norwegian whal-
Ing fleets. Ham and bacon already
are running short in the United
States. They have not actually been
rationed by the OPA. but dealers
have been obliged to put in a ra-
tioning system of their own in
accordance with diminishing sup
plies.
Another Crop in Fall.
The enormous increase in pigs is
considered by Department of Agri-
culture officials as perhaps the most
significant development of the war
on the al-important food front
The pig can make essential foods in
shorter time than almost any other
mechanism of nature 1t takes only
about eight months for the chubby
shoat Of early spring to become a
25o-pound, bleary-eyed hog ready
for the market.
Another crop of baby pigs will be
born next fall. They will be ready
for slaughter in late spring and
early summer. Only the sows and a
few breeding boars will be held over.
II the war lasts, it is expected next
springs increase will be much
greater than was the case this year.
The extra pigs, lard-makers and
bacon-makers, are fairly we'll dis
tributed over the country. The
latter are primarily the white pigs
in the northern tier of States, espe-
ciallv the dairy regions where there
Is plenty of skim milk. The former
are black pigs raised chiefly in the
corn belt. A little farther south
and west one encounters the red
pigs. Each of these varieties serves
Its specific purpose in making def
mite kinds Of foodstuffs.
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