In view of the above, our opinion on the subject you inquire about would scarcely be of any value. We do not understand that hogs fed on meats come to this market in any appreciable quantity.

Yours respectfully,

NELSON MORRIS & Co.,

WOLFNER.

ARMOUR FERTILIZER WORKS, CHICAGO, July 8, 1897. U. O. B. Wingate, M. D., Sec'y State Board of Health, Milwaukee, Wis.:

DEAR SIR-Your favor of the 7th of July has careful consideration.

Very few, if any, of the hogs received in this market are fed on meats of any kind, as far as we know. We occasionally sell raisers of fine blooded stock some dried blood or meat tankage. This latter is the tissue and bone dropped to the bottom of steel tanks in which the meat has been cooked under pressure for six hours to remove the grease. This meat is dried at once in steam driers and ground to a fine powder.

There is no question in our mind but what hogs are much healthier and make better food if they are fed partly on meat in some form. Nearly all hogs grown in the west are corn-fed. This ration forms great quantities of fat, but is decidedly deficient in the muscle and bone forming protein, and corn-fed hogs fall easy victims to cholera and such diseases, whereas the swill-fed and meat-fed hogs, possessing much more vitality, do not seem to be so easily affected. In addition to this, and from a commercial standpoint, hogs containing more lean make better hams and bacon and sell better in the various hog markets of the country.

Prof. W. A. Henry, of the University at Madison, Wis., has made experiments along these lines, and a good deal of work of this character has been done in Germany, proving that meat meals and dried blood are very desirable additions to farm products as food for hogs and cattle.

All the blood and tankage coming from properly equipped packing houses are treated in such a way, and at such high temperatures that any bacteria which might possibly exist in the hog when alive would be killed.

There are always some hogs fed on the offal around the various small slaughter-houses throughout the United States, but these are all killed by local slaughterers.

If we can give you any further information, we will be glad to do so.
Yours very truly,
ARMOUR FERTILIZER WORKS,
C. H. McDOWELL.

I wrote to Prof. Henry, of Madison, who has been studying this question for some time, and he sends me the following:

UNIVERSITY OF Wisconsin, MADISON, July 14, 1897. U. O. B. Wingate, M. D., Sec'y State Board of Health, Milwaukee, Wis.:

DEAR SIR-Under separate cover, I mail you a copy of our Tenth Annual Report, which gives a summary of the hog feeding experiments of this station to that date. I regret not being able to send you our Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Reports giving experiments in detail with the feeding dried blood, but these volumes are now out of print. I also send you our Twelfth and Thirteenth Reports, which contain some additional experiments with pigs. Dried blood was fed to pigs in experiments by Prof. J. W. Sanborn of Missouri, several years ago, but his reports are also out of print. Meat scrap, a by-product in the manufacture of various meat extracts, is fed to various farm animals in Europe; horses, sheep, and cattle being included. The Arabs fed their horses on meat at times as well as on dates and barley. I have recently received from Denmark samples of a dry mixture which is made from beet sugar molasses and fresh blood. We know that our poul

try and many game birds live upon insects and the smaller animal life, and we have no objection to eating these creatures.

In view of all the facts, I do not know why a Board of Health should object to swine being fed meat under reasonable limitations. In many places this is the proper way, in my judgment, of disposing of worn-out horses, as also of slaughter-house waste. Of course, the operation should be conducted in a cleanly manner and the animals not too heavily fed with this single food. Further, they should probably be fed grain for some time before slaughter. My only basis for this last statement is the fact that the flesh of swine fed corn has been found to be more tender than that from the same animal when fed much protein in the shape of bran, shorts, etc. Very respectfully, W. A. HENRY, Dean and Director.

FIRST AND SECOND REPORTS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, 1870-1871.

The pig is almost the only quadruped feeding in whole, or in part, on flesh which civilized man is willing to eat, unless pressed by starvation. Among ourselves, the only exceptions are the bear and the raccoon, and meat is not the chief food of either of these animals. The slaughter-house hog not only eats flesh, but flesh in a state of putridity, and is therefore entitled to be regarded as the carrion beast. If he is good to eat, so are the crow and the buzzard.

Few persons would be willing to eat him if they saw him in his putrid sty, with wreaths of entrails hanging about his neck, and his body smeared with blood. We are not prepared to assert that eating pork fed in this way is productive of any special disease, parasitic or otherwise. It would be very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to prove. Butchers often say that pigs fed on beef offal make good pork, and better than pigs fed on sheep offal. However this may be, we can say with certainty that human instinct (which is sometimes better than reason) recoils from such food.

We know that the fat of the carrion beast is soft, and prone to decomposition, unless his diet is changed to grain before killing. If the question is asked of any butcher in the market whether the pork he offers for sale is from a slaughter-house pen, the reply will be such as to satisfy the inquirer that such origin is not considered a recommendation.

The second objection to slaughter-house piggeries is of a more positive character. If anything is settled as to the cause of disease, it is the influence of decomposing organic matter in giving rise to diarrhoeal affections and Typhoid Fever, in depressing the vitality of children, thus rendering them less capable of resisting disease in every form, and in making all the epidemics more active and virulent.

The slaughter-house pig-pens are filled with putrid animal matter, with rotting blood mingled with excrement, and are therefore a source of danger to public health. * * *

The reform of any social evil may be greatly hastened if it can be shown that it does not involve pecuniary loss. Whoever attempts to reform our modes of slaughtering animals must be prepared to meet the universal statement among the butchers that hogs fed upon blood and offal are a source of profit. We can not deny it, while at the same time asserting that, as a source of danger to public health, the practice ought to be given up.

The keeping of hogs at slaughter-houses, and their subsistence upon the offal thereof, must receive absolute condemnation.

PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM EXPERIMENTS IN PIG FEEDING, 1883–89.

BY PROF. W. A. HENRY, MADISON.

All things considered, the hog has been the most profitable animal on western farms, and no small part of the wealth of the Western States is due to this one animal. Corn is and has been the almost universal food for swine in this section, and so it is to Indian corn that we are indebted for the benefits accruing from the hog. No other plant furnishes so much available food to the acre, or food that is so well relished by the hog, as corn. With millions of acres of land devoted to corn growing, and a large part of this corn being fed to hogs, it is no wonder we have come to regard corn as made for the hog and the hog for corn. To one who first acquaints himself with the situation it might appear that all the farmer has to do to increase his income is to plant more corn and raise more hogs, but the investigator will soon find that were the markets open to all that could be raised, there seems a limit to the pork production of any farm or locality, for numerous difficulties beset this vocation. Pigs are born only to meet an early death; Hog Cholera devastates large areas, passing from point to point with great rapidity, clearing everything before it, leaving the farms not only without swine, but so inoculated with the disease that all the business in that section must be held in abeyance for a year or more. Farmers are constantly complaining that their hogs become too fine-boned, and get but temporary relief by sending off to breeders for coarse-boned sires. These facts show that as now handled on the average farm at the West, the hog is in an abnormal condition and that degeneration is constantly going on, or popularly stated, "stock runs out." The difficulties in the way do not end with the troubles named, but follow the hog even after death, into the pork barrel. Foreigners claim that our pork is diseased, and place an embargo upon it. Home consumption is decreasing, not because our people think the pork is diseased in itself necessarily, but because the meat is so excessively fat that there arises a strong aversion against it in the minds of most people. As people in the lower classes in life get ahead in the world they give up pork for more expensive meat. Not only, then, have we to consider the questions of hog feeding from the standpoint of feeder and breeder, but the opinion and wish of the consumer must receive attention, if this industry, of such great magnitude, is to continue on a sound basis.

That with proper care, the form, size, substance and bone of the hog can be well maintained, and even advanced, is shown by the fact that careful, intelligent breeders and specialists hold their stock up to a high standard of excellence, and even improve it. Nor is it difficult for the intelligent farmer to keep his stock where it will yield a satisfactory profit. First of all there must be a careful discrimination between the hogs used for breeders and those intended only for feeders. Breeding from immature stock must be avoided as much as possible, for this is probably one of the greatest sources of the present lack of constitution. To fatten brood sows after they have farrowed off litters once or twice is a practice, most unfortunately, altogether too common. Good mothers should be held for breeders as long as possible. The care of the pig must begin before it is born, by not only giving the dam comfortable quarters, but supplying such food as is essential for the building up of the bodies of her young. During pregnancy the sow should receive plenty of protein food in the shape of blue grass or clover pasture, bran, shorts, middlings, shipstuff, skim-milk, and peas. It is impossible to keep brood sows through the winter on Indian corn alone and have good results at farrowing time. Even if large litters of pigs are successfully brought into the world by dams so fed, there must be a weakening of constitution which sooner or later will bring disastrous results. Since it is the cheapest food on the list, corn very properly may

form part of the ration of hogs at all times, but to cause a brood sow to not only maintain her own life but the bodies of a litter of young from the elements contained in the daily ration of corn is simply out of the question. There are not enough bone and muscle elements in the corn a brood sow can consume to suffice for building up the bodies of her young.

Unless the farmer has the proper buildings and conveniences for attending to the wants of brood sows it is better to have the pigs born in the summer time, when the mothers are running on pasture, for with pigs brought into the world under such conditions the risk is reduced to the minimum. When born it is profitable to push the pigs forward as rapidly as possible by feeding the mother heavily on nutritious diet, which should contain a very considerable amount of protein and ash elements, since the bodies of young pigs expand rapidly and should be built up in bone and muscle and not fat. The cheapest gain made by hogs at this station was when feeding sows with young pigs so heavily that they even gained in weight while suckling their young. Less than three pounds of feed then made a pound of gain. Having grown a strong muscular frame the time comes when the farmer must separate the breeding stock from the remainder of the herd and give it different treatment. Breeding stock should be kept out of doors, on pasture as much as possible, and every attention given towards keeping the animal natural and healthy. The final purpose to which hogs for the market are intended must direct the way in which they are handled. With a well grown carcass of 100 pounds for a basis, hogs which are intended for the general market can be fed almost exclusively on corn, adding a little ground oats, shorts, skim-milk or other protein food. As far as possible, however, in these times of low prices, hogs should be grown on pastures, and corn used only to ripen up the animal. On our western farms land is the cheapest and labor the dearest thing we have. The hog that runs in a clover field or blue grass pasture waits on himself, and makes a healthy growth, if not a very fast one. This growth is usually more profitable than that made from entire grain feed. Usually a part ration of grain can be profitably fed to grazing hogs to hasten their growth.

Where the general market is the destination, one can not be over-particular about the pork product, but must manage it at all points in the very cheapest way.

Farmers who are fattening steers should try feeding shelled corn and putting hogs with them. Our experience shows that the farmer who stanchions or ties up steers and gives corn meal for the main feed produces about the dearest beef that can be made. Let the steers run loose in an open yard or shed, with a good vigorous shote for each steer. The shote may yield some profit to the owner if the steer does not.

There is a growing demand for clean, wholesome pork, which should be catered to by intelligent farmers. Thousands of people are willing to pay increased prices for pork made from healthy, well-fed animals, kept in a cleanly manner. There is no reason why farmers can not co-operate and establish small packing houses which shall send out smoked ham, breakfast bacon, sausage and lard, which will be eagerly bought up at good prices by a discriminating public. The marvelous growth of the creamery business in the west during the last decade hints at what may be done in the pork trade. If the butter trade of the west was controlled by a few operators in Chicago who received the whole product and distributed it back again to the people, there would be no demand for intelligent dairying. A pound of butter oil produced by one party would sell for as much as that produced by another, and the large manipulators would make all the profits. A market for choice pork must be created and enlarged and the public properly informed of the situation before this matter will take proper shape. The plan is feasible, and certain sooner or later to be brought about.

Hogs fed to produce a large percentage of lean meat must, to be profitable, sell for at least 20 per cent. more than current prices. A discriminating market will soon pay this difference. Every animal requires a certain amount of food for its maintenance; the hog is no exception, and in feeding

we should remember that he will attend to his own bodily wants first of all and only lay on flesh afterwards. With his wonderful appetite and immense digestive powers, it is the height of folly to keep the hog on part rations. It is the satisfied, quiet hog that brings money to the owner. On the other hand we have found that our best gains came from hogs so anxious at meal time for their feed that they would show their greedy appetite by squealing. We do not believe in the practice of keeping feed before the hog at all times. In order to make first-class pork cleanliness is the first requisite. Not only should the pigs be kept in clean quarters, but their food should be clean and wholesome. The dairy farmer is well situated for producing this kind of pork, since skim-milk and buttermilk are rich in both protein and ash. Where the largest gain only is considered we have not found it advisable to feed over two or three pounds of skim-milk to one of corn meal. A larger amount of milk would give a somewhat increased amount of lean meat, but hardly enough to pay for the increased cost which the milk would necessitate. The limit for the amount of milk to meal, just given, should not be exceeded, but additional protein food, furnished in the form of oats, shorts or pea meal. Where peas can be grown they are admirable protein food, and should make a choice quality of pork. Peas can be sown broadcast in early spring, and when ripening can be fed down by hogs at no expense for gathering the crop. Our feeding trials show that oats are an admirable accompaniment to corn, the combination giving the best returns we have made, excepting skim-milk and corn meal. The protein and ash of the oat reinforces the corn meal, and the combination should give pork of fine quality. It is believed that there is a limit to the amount of lean meat which can be produced in a hog's body.

An excessive proportion is certainly not as desirable as it might seem at first thought. Unless there is a due proportion of fat interlarded with the lean, marbled as we commonly say, the meat will be flavorless. The flavor of good meat comes quite largely, no doubt, from the mixture of fat with lean. This should be borne in mind in producing meat of good quality. High grade pork will not permit the hog from which it is made to become too heavy, since most of the increase, after reaching a certain point, is only fat. Two hundred or two hundred and fifty pounds is probably the limit for the best class of carcasses of the kind under consideration, with the large breeds common at the west.

In this review of our work we started out with a statement of the prevalence of corn for hog feeding at the west. All through our work we have been surprised at the power of this grain for producing gain. We have also been surprised to see how perfectly satisfied the hog was when existing upon a corn diet. It is plain to any one who studies the subject, even casually, that as the prosperity of the west in the past has been based upon corn, so corn must continue to be the great money-making crop of that section. If pork raising is to continue one of the leading industries, a large part of the product must continue to be the result of feeding corn. There is no doubt but that corn makes pork of fine quality and great firmness, if properly fed. It should be distinctly borne in mind, then, that we have not a word to say against the use of corn for pork production. It is against the abuse of corn, and not its use, that we have written. Intelligently fed, corn is all right; only in its abuse is there any wrong. There need be no less corn fed, but more protein food should be given in the shape of clover, blue grass, oats and other grains, along with the corn now given them.

We can not close this article without alluding briefly to the importance of feeding ashes to hogs. Many farmers are obliged to feed corn in large quantities upon prairie farms, where hardwood ashes are scarce or unknown, and yet upon these very farms there is the greatest need of ash material for aiding in building up the bone of hogs. Corncobs furnish a very strong ash and should be burned and the ashes carefully saved and fed to the hogs.