fr Hatches II02 Secrets "W jpftt^h* 1 1 Hatch's Ho£ Secrets 6

r, in fact, the stock business of any kind. You are aware of the fact that conditions are changing all the time, and therefore we must experiment a little, and try and supply that which the system of our animals need or demand. You can no doubt remember when our hogs ran out in the woods, and did not have more than seventy-five per cent, of the diseases that they have now. Why? Because they had plenty of exercise and also had access to all the roots and herbs and moss of the woods. Therefore they could doctor themselves. I will go further in this line. Nowadays when we turn our hogs out we will set in from one to four rings in each hog's nose and as a consequence we deprive them of what roots and herbs they could get. When we cut off that recourse, why don't we try and supply the shortage? Supplying the Shortage. Now by supplying this shortage' we are sure to retain health and more pounds, and you will find that both are very 12 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS essential and most pleasing- to the hog- raiser. When we think of it in the right way it means money in our pockets, or our rate of interest, if you please. The Cholera Germ. Now we will take up the cholera proposition. I have read .several statements from our agricultural department and they * say that the cholera germ is so small that it cannot be detected, even with the strongest glass. Now if that be true, how do we know that it really exists? What does it take to develop these germs? Isn't it a fact that filth is the only recourse we have for cholera or nearly so? Also isn't it a fact that almost all disease germs are pres- ent in our own systems at all times? What does it take to •develop them? If we will but study on this matter a little we will find that it takes some encouragement, and this encourage- ment acts as fertilizer does to our crops that we plant in the iground. Let us try and see if we cannot get away from this main and fatal point. The Fatal Point. This fatal point comes in various ways. It will develop through sudden and gorgeous feeding, such as changing from one food to another. To illustrate, the change from the ordinary pasture in the fall of the year to green corn, as you know lots HATCH'S HOG SECRE TS 13 of men turn their hogs into a piece of corn and let them help •themselves. Consequently they gorge their organs, and it is considered one of the worst things that could happen to a hog. Lots of men have fed disease into their hogs, even when feed- ing chop feed. They will put a little chop in a whole lot of water and force the animal to drink about five times as much water as they really require, and thereby gorge the organs the same as they would with the green corn. Avoid Gorging the Organs. Gorging the organs is one great point that should be avoid- ed by all means, as it is one of the most dangerous things that could happen in the hog business. Let us stop and study for a minute and see if a hog will die with any other disease except cholera. I don't think we would have to figure long. Take the figures of our agricultural department and see if they don't say that a great part of the disease is caused from worms. If that statement be true, which is unquestioned. it can be easily remedied. So we have located the cause of part of our troubles. Now isn't it a fact that the gorging of the organs and worm troubles cause about seventy-five per cent, of our troubles? If that be the case we wouldn't have but about twenty-five per cent, left for cholera. I think you can readily see where we can shade the other twenty-five per cent, a whole lot by the proper care and attention. 14 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS Worms in Hogs. Do you think that worms will cause a hog to have cholera?' No, but they will throw a hog into the various fevers which exist in the hog family. It is just as essential to avoid the fever as it is to avoid hog cholera, as they will die with either one. Tn my estimation it is more essential to avoid the fevers in preference to the cholera, as there is su much more of it, and we should always pull to the one that causes us the most trouble. Hog cholera lias been pronounced incurable, and for that reason we should put forth more effort against the fever. There is one great mistake that the hog raiser makes, and that is this: When oie of his hogs gets sick, the first thing he thinks of is cholera, and all the talking a man can do will not change his mind. Why Hog Cholera is Incurable. I will, give you an idea for the reason why hog cholera is. incurable. The only reason that I could ever figure out is that you couldn't coax them to live long enough to get a dose of medicine thri ugh their system. If any one will notice a genuine- case of cholera they will see that the hog doesn't last very long- from the time they take with it until they are dead. If a man can get hold of a hog before it comes down with the cholera it can be prevented. I, at one time, saved fourteen out of seven- HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 15 teen head, which evidently had the genuine cholera, but the ones I saved hadn't come down with it yet. So by this parti- cular case it proves that if it is taken in time it can be stopped. In this specific case the man had thrown his hogs into the cholera by feeding sweet corn that he had planted late and it had never matured. He cut the corn after the frost came and it stood in the shock and moulded. He thought he would feed it first and he did. but it proved very expensive feeding. You can see that better than ninety per cent, of the hog trouble is the man's own fault. Let us see if we can cut the other ten per cent, a little. You have noticed your hogs passing whole grain, haven't you? And lots of it. Now do you think that this is a normal condi- tion? And what do you call it when our food passes us prac- tically'the same way as we had eaten it? Do we feel good when in this condition? Wouldn't we call it indigestion? Well, what usually follows? It is not long until we have fever. The same thing applies to the hog. What 'would we do for our- selves in the above case? We would get a radical physic through us about as soon as possible. Well, that would be about the right thing to do with your hog. The first thing that would be suggested would be a dose of salts. That would be ;a good suggestion for the hog. Why? Because it flushes the 16 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS bowels and throws off the accumulation of poison that passes through the stomach and bowels so that they will not work as nature intended them. The salts have the same action on the kidneys, which is another vital point, as it should have the same action taken on them as the stomach and bowels. When Fever Sets In. Now when internal fever sets in, what effect does it have on the stomach? It closes the channels in which the digestive fluid flows, so as to cause a molting process to take place and causes paralysis, or a paralyzing condition and stops the proper action, so we can expect almost anything else to set in. The animal is just the same as a piece of machinery. Tt must be in perfect time and every part must work in harmony to get results. W'hen we start any new machinery it always works well, but when we allow it to work loose at every point and do not keep it oiled, what is the result? It will wear out. Just so with the constitution of the hog. When the constitution or the har- mony of our machinery wears out we throw it in the junk pile. When the harmony of the hog system is broken, what happens? It gets sick and dies. So we must look at our stock in the way just mentioned 'before we can raise hogs successfully and avoid the hog" diseases. HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 17 Now as worms are the cause of most of our hog trouble, we must avoid them. As wood ashes and salt have been a remedy for years, and it is a good one as far as it goes (but it doesn't go nearly far enough), there is one thing that must be avoided when using it: You must never force a hog to eat it. Let him eat what he wants of it. The animal will get wdiat salt his system requires. P>ecause 1 say that worms cause more trouble than cholera, it is no sign that you should feed some- thing strong enough to kill them, such as lye or sulphuric acid. '.Never feed them anything that you wouldn't take yourself. You should avoid feeding soft coal, as it is absolutely indigestible, and anything that is indigestible is a waste of vitality and no conditioner, but the craving appetite an animal has for a con- ditioner causes him to eat. That appetite should be satisfied by something else that is digestible. As to the sulphuric acid, as I have seen worm powder that contained it, and I have also dissected hogs that had been fed on this class of goods and have found acid burns in the intes- tines as large as a silver dollar. So you see such things should be avoided by all means. The best worm expeller in existence to my knowledge is the German worm seed. It expels the worms and heals the ab- cesses of the bowels. 18 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS German Worm Seed is Safe. The worm seed is absolutely safe in every way, as it does not disturb the mucous membrane of the intestines. The best antiseptic is hyposulphate of soda, as it purines the stomach thoroughly and increases the flow of digestive fluids to a point where they will utilize as high as ninety-five per cent, of the food, they eat. Did it ever occur to you that the ordinary animals through- out the country do not utilize more than fifty or sixty per cent, of the food they eat? That would leave forty per cent, of the food unutilized, or thirty-five per cent, of the food wasted. Why we figure on a basis of ninety-five per cent, is because we have a five per cent, natural waste in our own body, the same as in the animal's body, that cannot be overcome by us or the finest of experts. This is the reason we do not figure on over ninety-five per cent. Forty Per Cent. Waste. Now we will go back to the forty per cent, waste proposi- tion in simple figures. If you have sixty dollars' worth of hogs, and would put the hogs in condition to utilize ninety-five per cent., your gain would have been thirty-five dollars more. These figures show the gain on the same amount of grain fed. Can you afford this loss? If you will stop and figure a little you can overcome the greater portion of this loss by HATCH'S HO G SECRETS 19 giving your hogs a little more attention. It is time to stop this leakage or a waste of money. You should take time to give them the proper care that is due them, as it will pay you a good dividend for your time. Use of Charcoal. We will now pass to the use of charcoal. Tt has gre it sweetening properties am! absorbs foreign gases that accumu- late in the stomach, which is a vital point in the hog raising. Origin of Parasites. We will now go back to the origin of the various parasites that exist in the hog family. Evidently they are caused by a nit laid by some insect, and a great many times it is very hard to trace back to its origin, as the.e are so many different kinds, and so many different starting points. Although some of them have been located, for instance, the Tenia parasite, or lung worm. This one is caused by the nit laid by the gallinipper, or hog mosquito. This nit is usually deposited on the under side of the grass blades and is taken into the stomach with the grass, and it develops into the very small worm called the Tenia parasite. As this worm is very weak, consequently the worm will work up into the upper portion of the stomach where there is the least danger, and later up into the throat, which will cause the hog to cough. Every time a hog coughs he catches his breath and as a result throws the worms back into the lungfs. xAiter 20 . HATCH'S HOG SECRETS they have had a seeding they will multiply within themselves,, and as a natural result will throw the lungs into a tubercular stage. When they reach that point they are absolutely in- curable. As to the worm just mentioned, T do not know whether you have ever seen any of them or not, so I will give you a little description of them. They are usually about the size of a hair and about an inch in length. You will find them in the tubes, of the lungs and usually in the lower portion in the start. Now I have taken you through this point pretty thorough- ly, and may again come back to this phase of the subject before 1 close the book. Later on in this book I will endeavor to give some formula to overcome a certain portion of the troubles just mentioned, and if you will pay particular attention to these lines you will find that we have Overcome Better Than Seventy -five Per Cent. of the diseases that exists among our hogs. If you will observe the cholera proposition there isn't such a great per cent, of the old line cholera in existence after all. As I think that I have mentioned before, that the greatest mistake the hog raiser makes is to pronounce every case of sick- ness that he has in his herd, cholera. That is one weak point in the raiser, and a very, very bad one, too. Now when these points show up, why don't you find out as to the character o» the disease? HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 21 You can tell yourself, and in more than one way. In the case of cholera, you can tell by the length of time they live, as in those cases the life is very short from the time they come down with it until death; while with other diseases they will linger along-, sometimes as long as five or six weeks. The best and surest way for a man who does not understand the various diseases is for him to stick a knife into the hog and kill it. About the first symptom that shows up is the gland in the neck. It will be enlarged and highly inflamed so it can easily be de- tected. The next point that should be examined is the stomach or the ossicle gland, which will show the same way. There are lots of men who figure on the hemorrhagic stages of the system, but that isn't a certainty, as these condi- tions will exist in the various fevers. , The Vaccination Treatment. Let us now take up the vaccination treatment. T have been asked more than a thousand times as to what T thought of it. Well, I will tell you, the same as I have each and every man. I think it is all right if you get the genuine cholera serum. But if you get serum processed from the blood of a hog that has typhoid fever it would be very wrong. In the case just men- tioned, suppose your hog had the cholera and you would vac- cinate it with a typhoid serum, what would be the result? You would be doubling up the dose on him and what could you expect? I have seen similar ca c es to this. I will carry this a little further so that you will appreciate that the vaccination is not a cure-all any more than is the vaccination against smallpox. 22 HA TCH'S HOG SECRETS You would take typhoid fever just the same as though you had never 'been vaccinated. 1 believe that you will fully understand the points 1 am trying- to make plain to you, so we will go fur- ther into the hog proposition. Now if you feel that you want to protect your herd both ways, that is all right, and a wise thing to do; but I would make one suggestion in this case — ■ place the credit where it actually belongs. If the credit belongs to the vaccination, place it there; but if it belongs to my sys- tem, place it there, and don't be afraid to say so, especially to your neighbors. As it will do you good, it will do your neigh- bor good also. It is as much to your interest to protect your neighbor's herd as it is to protect your own, or nearly so, as every man should take an active part in ridding his neighbor- hood of disease. Disease Germs Carried in the Air. As you are aware, the disease germs can be carried in the air and in various other ways. For that reason we should take extraordinary pains to keep our neighbors interested in the vari- ous preventatives. While the germs can be carried in various other ways, it can be prevented to some great extent by the use of a good dip used as a disinfectant, but not altogether. As you understand, the condition of the hog has a lot to do with the contracting of disease if the general constitution is run down, and he may contract the disease within himself, as HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 23: you will appreciate that there must be a starting point some- where. It is just as liable to start in your herd as anyone's. Consider the Litter. We will now call back to the litter once more. No doubt you have seen litters of pigs in which one or two of them were mature pigs and the rest of them would run down to practically nothing. Why. Because the sow has not enough vitality, or at least not enough surplus vitality to build the whole litter to maturity. You will often find that these cases exist where the sow is too fat, or out of condition. This makes a shortage of vitality and lack of powers to mature the litter. The same shortage will follow the pig to the block. When a litter is farrowed, you should dispose of the runt, if there be one, as it is practically eliminated and has no power of resistance, and will in a great many cases get you into trouble. You cannot afford to take the chances on them. My advice would be to kill them as this is the best place to market a runt. You will find by conditioning your stock, and breeding matured stock, you will overcome a great per cent, of the trouble just mentioned. Never allow your breeding stock to fatten. Keep them in what is termed just good growing order, or if any preference, a little poor. To illustrate, we will take a brood sow that weighs four hundred pounds when fattened, and cut the same sow back to two hundred, she has the same amount of blood and circula- 24 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS tion that she had when she weighed four hundred pounds. Now do you think that she should be expected to support the two hundred pounds of excessive fat and build as good a litter of pigs as if she did not have the extra two hundred pounds of flesh, as you know that a mother always supports her own body first, and the surplus vitality goes to support her litter? So you see that you can expect more of a sow that is in a good growing- condition than you can expect of the fat sow, and that is the principle to carry all through your hog business. This is to say, grow your hugs or pigs, and not try to fatten and grow them the same time, as it weakens the constitution to a point where they cannot resist ;h much as if they were in a growing condition. After they have their growth is the time to do your heavy feeding and do your fattening. You will notice that they will take fat faster after they have their growth, as it is a slow process to do both at the same time. Do One Thing at a Time and Do It Well. It is just the same as doing anything else. Do one thing at a time and do it well, and you will find it to be the most suc- cessful. Now as to the care. The first principle to be observed is to keep your pens and sleeping quarters clean, and do not al- low your hogs to run to a manure pile or straw stack in the winter, as they will accumulate more germs there than in any other possible place, on account of the filth. Avoid keeping HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 25 them in a place where too many sleep together, as they will pile up and heat and steam themselves, and when the cold air strikes them, it is liable to throw them into pneumonia of vari- ous kinds. This is the hardest thing to overcome that we have in the hog family, and it is a poor time to commence after they are down sick with it. You will find that it will be easily avoided if you watch them and use good judgment. Feeding. Now let us take up the feeding of the hogs and pigs. For stock hogs or growing pigs you should 1 use a balanced ration. While it is difficult to carry out a complete balance all seasons of the year, I will suggest a balance of this kind : ( )ne-fourth (Yi) whole wheat, one-fourth {%) shelled corn and one-half (J4) oats. I do not mean in measure, but in pounds, as sixty pounds of wheat, sixty pounds shelled corn and one hundred twenty pounds of oats chopped together. There is no better muscle builder than wheat, there is no better bone builder than oats, and the corn produces enough fat to keep the animal in good growing condition. When feeding avoid feeding in slop. Usuallv a man will put a little chop feed in a whole lot of water, and in that way gorges the organs to a certain extent. As I have mentioned before, it should be avoided by all means. Make your feed just wet enough so that it will all be moist, so the animal has to eat it instead of drinking it. In gorging the 26 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS organs of your hog you just stunt him that much. If you will remember, you never saw a poted hog attain a very great size. You will also notice that pigs will gorge themselves on clover or alfalfa pasture. Suppose you bring them in and do as I have mentioned before, put a little chop in a whole lot of water. In this way you are wasting your feed and doubling the gorge, and you will not get much more than half of the good healthy growth that is coming to you. Mistake Commonly Made. We will not discuss the mistake that hundreds of hog men make as to feeding corn. They get the idea that corn is the only hog feed that there is in existence. That is very wrong indeed. Corn alone is one of the poorest feeds for stock hogs or growing pigs that can be fed. I have mentioned this before on previous pages, and the reason I repeat this statement is be- cause I wish to impress it on your minds and have you try and break away from it. except in feeding out stock for market. Corn as a Fattener. Without question corn is the best fattener we have, as it contains more carbons and oils than any other grain we raise. Therefore it will produce more fat than any of our grains. I suppose you have seen the bulletin published by our agri- cultural department of the start they have made in one county in Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska. You will notice that the strong- HATCH'S HOG SECRE TS 27 est point carried in all of these statements is the sanitary condi- tions, and in all the quarantine districts this one point is carried out very strong. They have an inspector in each of these dis- tricts to see that the sanitary rules are observed. If we keep our stock in the right condition physically we will win more prizes than they will, because we are preventing the trouble without inoculating the animal with the disease germ and taking a chance on doubling up the disease on them, as 1 have ex- plained on previous pages. You will notice that this game is just like a horse race. The people that are doing the vaccinat- ing is playing a favorite and putting us against the held. But as we are equal to the occasion we will stand it, even if we have to buck the odds. The old adage holds good in every case, that an ounce of preventative is worth a pound of cure. This old saying has been taught us since childhood, and why don't we observe it? Insure Against Diseases. Now let us insure our herd against disease, through our own careful observance and treatment. You will reacily see that in this case we are the insurance company, policy holder and the whole thing. You will also appreciate the insurance. Without a doubt you carry insurance on your barn. Why? To protect yourself, of course. You will take the best possible care of it and see that it is not in danger in any way, if you could possibly prevent it. 28 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS Let us see if we cannot protect our hogs in the same man- ner, as the hog" is usually the one that builds these barns and buys automobiles and builds nice little fire proof garages to keep them in. There is nothing- that provokes me more than to see a man who has all of these modern conveniences and then allows his hogs to sleep out of doors. As a rule the hog pays for it all, and I think he should be protected first; then if you have any spare time put it on your automobile. Now as we have taken enough time for this subject we will pass on to another. Let me delay you just one moment longer and ask you this question : Don't you think it is easier to treat the cause than to treat the disease? We will see the time when a system treatment will be de- manded by the people. There will be laws governing that point, both in man and beast. I will make a simple illustration to show this point. Take the cow. Now in case of a cow giving bloody milk, where would you start treatment on her? Do you think it would be the right place to start on the milk organs? Wouldn't it be a wiser plan to start at the stomach and come out? The stomach feeds the blood, and the blood feeds the milk organs. In this manner you would get a permanent cure, while in the way mentioned first you would but get a temporary relief, as it would be only a question of time until the stomach would throw off enough poison to cause the same trouble you had in the first HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 29 place. You can readily see that the system treatment is the only way to treat any disease — or Treat the Cause. Now as we do not keep our stock for pleasure, we try to keep them for profit. But when we keep them out of condition we are surely not profiting therehy. The proper thing to do is to keep them utilizing all the food they eat. In this way we will he realizing a profit on what is usually wasted. ^ 7 hen we get our breeding stock in proper condition we can hardly imagine the trouble we are avoiding. Not only in the regular line of sickness, hut in the way of abortion and failure in getting them pregnant. All of these things means a great loss to the breeder. As a rule the stock man depends a great deal on the earlv pasture. Why? Because it has a tendency to loosen the bowels of the animal. That has some effect on the general con- dition of the system. The stomach is without a question the key seat to all diseases. How many men are there who do not reach the point of the early pasture? How many men are there who have their stock in proper condition that they could hardly pull through and make any money without the pasture, if there should be such a thing as a failure in that line? I don't think there would be very many, do you ? 30 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS The Winter Pig. Now let us take up the winter pig proposition. As to my choice I would prefer raising- winter pigs instead of early spring pigs. What I mean in this statement is to have the pigs come late in the fall, and winter them. In this way thry m'ss a great deal of the germs that cause parasites, and that is a great ad- vantage. While we have a little disadvantage of the cold weather, if the proper care and attention is given them you can raise a much better pig. and one with a stronger constitution. I would much rather select my breeding stock from the class just mentioned iti order that I might gain that one particular point. That is one of great advantage, and if you will try ii you will find it a most satisfactory idea. The Cow as a Milk Producer. We will now go back to the cow. Why don't a man put his cow in the proper condition in winter? If proper attention is given the cow she can be made to produce as much good rich milk in the winter as in the summer when she has green pasture. In fact she would give more in the winter than in the summer for the reason that the feed is stronger and there are no flies to bother her. She has many advantages over the sum- mer, and if you just make a little experiment in this line the fact will be demonstrated to you to your full satisfaction. You realize HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 31 moie out of your butter fat in the winter than in the summer, and you have more time to devote to the cows at that time of the year, as you do not have nearly so much work to do then. To realize the greatest profit on cows is to make them do their heavy milking in the winter, or let the calf run with them. I don't mean exactly to let the calf run in the pasture with the cow, but let the calf stay in a small lot of about an acre of ground, and have a good dark shed for the calf so it can get away from the flies, and turn your cows in with the calf in the morn- ing and let the calf suck, and then turn her out. In the even- ing do the same thing, and in this way it will not cut any figure with your cow breeding. I will go just a little further with the care of the calf. As soon as the calf is large enough to want to eat a little give him some ground oats in a trough fixed in the shed just mentioned. You can mix in the ground oats a little oil meal, as this has a tendency to help the cow out in her duties in raising the calf, and will leave more milk for you to take from the cow. Another important thing to see to is that all the milk is taken from the cow each time the calf is allowed to suck.: If the calf don't take it all you should see that she is milked out. These points will make you money if properly observed. 32 HATCH'S HOG SEC RETS J Calves Sell for Eighty Dollars Each. In 1913 I saw two calves that had run with the cow, sell for eighty dollars each. The calves were thirteen months old at the time of marketing. The cows were culled out of a dairy. They w r ere considered unprofitable to use in that line any longer. As to their being pregnant they had to be kept over, and in this way were made profitable instead of the milking. After these calves were weaned the cows fed a short time and were then sold for as much as was paid for them. The profit on the calves were absolutely clear gain. What T am getting at is this. I want to get the farmer awa> from the old idea, or out of the old rut, in which he is liable to stick or lose money continually. You can see it is much better to raise stock in this way than to raise stock on milk that has been run through a cream separator, or on wind and sunshine. You very well know that you cannot get something from nothing. This would be absolutely impossible. There is another essential feature that must be observed with the breeding stock. That is to see that they have plenty of exercise. Proper Exercise Needed. This is off from the regular subject, but a few hints on this line you will find very beneficial. Back to bur regular subject, I will furnish plans and specifications for a sanitary hog house on request. I think it will more than meet your approval in every HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 33 respect. It is the most all-around plan 1 have ever seen. If it impresses you as it has me you would use no other plan, be- cause I believe it would pay for itself in a very short time. It is sanitary and convenient. Each and every animal gets the proper exercise. Raising Wrong Kind of Hogs. I have made the statement a number of times to heavy corn feeders that they are raising- the wrong kind of hogs for the way they are trying to raise them. They fatten their young stock in- stead of trying to grow them. As I said before when you fatten a young hog you do not get the size to them. So in this case the feeder should raise the Tamworth Hampshire, or the old line Chester Whites, as they will grow until they get their growth before they will fatten. They are what is termed the bacon hog. In this way they are sure to grow resisting power and can ward off disease, while if they would fatten it would weaken the con- stitution to a point where they would contract disease. Building the Hog. Now let us think a moment on the illustration of the build- ing. We would not try to put up the studding and the siding at the same time. You would always build the frame first, and put on the siding afterwards. Why not figure on the same plan for the hogs? Build their frame first and then put on the siding and finish up the job. 34 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 1 have talked to a great many farmers concerning the differ- ent 'breeds of hogs, and they differ very materially in this line. Some want hogs that they can feed out at about three to four months, while some want to market at about nine months old. No doubt you have noticed when you get a hog up to three hun- dred pounds, that the last hundred, or the third one goes on a great deal quicker and cheaper than the first hundred. ' The cheapest and quickest hundred is the one we want the worst, as that means more net profit to the feeder. The three hundred mark can be reached very easily at nine months old if proper care has been given the stock. To illus- trate this fact, and to your own satisfaction, make a little ex- periment of your own, and I believe that you will agree with me in every point that I have endeavored to make plain to you. The Large Boned Poland China Hog. As to breed, I am a little partial to the large boned Poland China hog, but a man must keep the fat off of them, or you will have the same trouble with them as with any other strain that is easily fattened. Because this is my choice, that does not signify that every man shall raise the same breed. At this day and age of the world we have all good breeds if ; they are raised as they are intended to be raised. A man makes a success in raising any breed that we have. But above all things he should avoid the fat on his breeding stock. If a man can not keep the fat HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 35 off of the Poland Duroc or Berkshire he should raise the Tarn- worth or the old line Chester White, as they will not fatten at that period, and I do not think that you will have any trouble in keeping the fat off of them. They will stay in what we term growing condition, and it will not be any trouble to keep them in that condition. The Size of the Litter. We will now fall back to the size of the litter. The ordinary brood sow will, if she has any chance, throw seven or eight pigs, and that is enough for 0:1? litter. 1 would rather have the num- ber of pigs just mentioned than to have d mble the amount, as the smaller litter will usually be extra good ones. T would rather have seven good pigs than twice the number of culls. There is one more point I would wish to call your attention to. That is to the breeding. Thoroughbred stock, as 1 think there isn't anything that looks better or nicer than a herd of thoroughbred stock, no matter what kind. They are all a uni- form color, arid if 1 had my way I would classify the sizes. In this manner it has more than one barring. To illustrate, if a man wants to sell his farm, the stock he raises has a great deal to do with it. The nearer a man has his stock classified the bet- ter the impression. T think that you get the point that I am try- ing to make here. We all like to see a good system, even if it is on the farm, as there is nothing nicer than a well systematized place. 36 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS Avoid the Weak Points. Let us avoid every weak point possible. We will have enough weak 'ones at the best. If we avoid the greater amount of them we will find that the sickness in our herds will he reduced to a point that will surprise you, and we will not have to doctor nearly so much. Every little bit helps. There is one great point that I would like to impress upon the herdsman. That is to study the condition that exists in his herd, and keep on studying as long as he is in the business. Study the habits of the animal, the condition of the bowels, and above all see that every hog eats well every time he is fed. We have too many people who feeds and never looks. A good hog man should be a close observer and know every hog in his herd and know that it is doing all right. If he does not do that the first thing he knows they will slip something over on him that will be hard to get rid of. It pays to be a close observer in all stages of hog life. I have talked to men who didn't know how many hogs they had. Perhaps you know of some of these men in your neighborhood. As a rule this kind of a man does not make a very good hog man, as he would not know whether one half of them were layed out. half of them were sick or not. That is what a man should know and be sure of. For example there is a vast difference between a business man and a farmer. What we call the farmer is the man who HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 37 just plows his fields and sows the seed and sells his grain. The business man figures to have enough stock to utilize all of his grain. If there is a profit in shipping grain to the larger markets and then they distribute it back to the stock feeder, and still the feeder makes a profit on it, it would seem that there would be a great profit to the man that produced it. Without a doubt the man who feeds the grain that has been handled through so many hands makes a profit in feeding it or he wouldn't use it. You can then understand that you would clear up all of the middleman's profits and be net to you. You can see that there is more money in buying grain than there is in selling it. Thus you can see the difference between the business man and the farmer. Now let us try and be a business man from this date on. See if we cannot in- crease our profits very materially the first year. If we can do so the first year we can surely improve on it the second and so on until we get real proficient in this line of economy. Think of the grocer if he would give a pound and a quarter of sugar for a pound. It would overcome his profits and he would be forced out of business. In this case he would be a farmer. Rut, if on the other hand, he would watch these leaks he would be called a business man. Now as we have hundreds of stock men who are farmers, I think you will appreciate this illustration and profit by it. At least I hope so. The man who feeds at a loss had better be a 38 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS farmer and sell all of his grain as he wouldnt loose his time feed- ing, and perhaps lose on the grain 'besides. The Stock Business is a Trade, and not a natural vocation. If a man does not study his busi- ness and keep up-to-date he had better go out of business and go to work by the day wage as he would make more money for himself that he would to try and do something of which he knew nothing about. He had better get busy and study the line that he wishes to take up before he goes into it, and in this manner he would save a lot of bought up experience. Such ex- perience usually conies high. It has been a mystery to me for years why the stock man didn't get out of the old rut in which he has stuck for years. I fear that some men feel a little sore at me for putting this so plain, but 1 can't help it, as I am writing you just as I feel in this matter. But as you understand these little sore spots soon heal over, they will tip their hats to me the same as hundreds of others have done. I have talked to many men on this particular line who have gotten on their ear to me, so to speak, and wanted to fight, but if they knew how little that bothered me they would keep it to themselves. The average stock man just waits for some smooth- tongued man to come along and sell him something in the way of HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 39 a conditioner that amounts to nothing to him. As a rule he will not buy anything that will do him any good, as he thinks it costs too much. As I have told you before, you cannot get something for nothing, we will pass for a few brief moments to some facts on the so-called conditioners that are offered to the stock man the year around, and year after yean and still they grab them be- cause the}* are cheap. Some of them give the formula on the package, and of course they give it in the medical names and the stock man never takes the time to find out what they mean. As a rule they are very common things, and as a rule the farmer has plenty of them on the farm. I will give you a few ideas along this line. There are some who use quite a per cent of crude fibre ; that , could be saw dust I don't say that it is, but it could be. Crude fat is another one. What is crude fat for an animal? Wouldn't it be anything that would fatten it? Corn would be crude fat for an animal. Now we will take nitrogen free extract. That could be wood ashes. Just take a look at the label on the bucket you have in your barn and see if you cannot find some of these few of the many that you get hung up on every year. What do you really suppose the first cost on such goods really are? When we take the first thought we know that they do not cost much or the manufacturers wouldn't get immensely rich in such a few vears. 40 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS Now what can a man expect from such goods? You can readily see that these leakages should be stopped, and they will never be unless we take an interest in it and try and find out what we are using, and then we will know how to use it, and further we would know what to pay for it. Thousands of Hogs Dying. Throughout the United States there are thousands and thou- sands of hogs dying absolutely unnecessarily, and could be easily avoided by giving them a little of the proper care. They will readily respond to anything that we do in this line. They will pay the margin that will be necessary to cover our extra time that we nut in with them. If we do not put in any time or ex- pense we cannot expect anything in return. If we expect a good profit we must do as I have just mentioned. Now as I have given lots of care and study to these subjects I find that practical experience is the greatest teacher in these lines. I would like to see every man take a hand in this work and try a little experiment of his own in his own herd. Then see if there isn't some great improvement made that will in- crease his profits in the way of the stock business. A very good way to do is to travel around in your immediate vicinity and examine the different herds and the conditions that really exist. If you would let every one know what you are doing some people would get mad about it. They would tell you they HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 41 didn't thank you for prowling- around their barns and hog lots. You do not need to tell them what you are after. You can make some reasonable excuse and get by with it. I surely think that this would be a good educator, and a man can readily see his own weak spots. Organize Your Neighborhood. Another good way is to form a little organization in your neighborhood. Meet once a month and get together and talk the hog matter over. You will be surprised as to the interest that will be taken and you will appreciate that every man has some gDod thoughts, even the weakest man. In this manner, if you are a good observer, you can easily extract the good points and then condense them. Use them to a profit. The longer your or- ganization runs the more proficient your argument gets. Above all things make every man get up and talk in your meetings. It will be strengthening to him and to all concerned. A man doe-; not necessarily have to get up and m ike a long flowery speech in order to be effective. A few \v< r;l>, though they may be in a crude state, may be very valuable to you, and give you an idea so that you can put it in with your ideas and make something good out of it. I will now say a word or two more about organization. If one should ever be perfected in your vicinity I surely woul# be glad to meet with you in one of your meetings, as it always 42 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS affords me great pleasure to see the boys get their shoulders to- gether and to the wheel and fight against the disease that is the ruination of the hog industry today. I also enjoy taking an ac- tive part in the fight. You have often heard this remark made by men that they have never fed hogs in all their experience that have done as well as they have this year. Now how many times is this result a mistake or luck, or in other words season condi- tions that produce this result in the place of the man's good care and careful treatment? The thing that we are fighting for is to produce these happy results each and every year regardless of the season's conditions. This case just mentioned might have come about by some par- ticular season when the insects have been destroyed through some season conditions, that are the ones that deposit the nits on the grass blades that are eaten by the hogs. That causes the parasites or worms that are causing a great portion of the dis- eases among the hogs today. You can readily see that there are lots of ways that the man just mentioned could credit his result. There are thousands of people who have gotten the idea into their heads that the animal has to have the worms in their system. That is entirely wrong. If you think it is necessary just try it by ridding the hogs of them. You will get a result that will sur- prise you. HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 4S Try the Experiment. A good way to put on this test is to divide a single litter and' treat one half properly and let the other half go in the old way and give thf.m the same grain rations. 1 have suggested this test many times and have never failed to get a good report. It is about the only way you can satisfy some people, as they are from Missouri — you have to show them. If they try it themselves they are better satisfied. If such tests are in order with the hog, wouldn't it be true: with the rest of your stock? It is a poor rule that does not \\-( irk both ways. There are many people, who think 1 make false statements when I pass the remark that I feel just as much interest in your stock as you do yourself. In one way I don't. That is in the financial way. But in the physical way I do, and in a great many cases more than the owner himself. There is one great object in this for me, and that is, I want to see a better and more profitable condition in the hog business. That is the whole object. If there were any other object I surely would have been soliciting them, and I don't think that you will find anything in these pages that will hint that way. I have asked the question to lots of people. Why Don't You Raise Better Stock? and invariably the answer is, they would like to raise thorough- 44 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS bred stock but they can't ait rd it. In a king this question, I don't particularly mean that a man should raise thoroughbreds, but 1 mean to have the raiser improve on the condition lie already has. Disease has no respect to breed, and for that reason we should protect our mixtures the sams as ;f they were thoroughbreds. One of the most essential things to do is to keep them in the pink of condition, and gain more pounds of pork on less grain invested ; also larger and stronger litters. There is one more point I wish to take up with you before we get by, and that is of the hrst eight weeks of the pig's life; his whole life depends on that. If a pig is thrifty in every way and grows rapidly for that period it is hard to stunt him. On the other hand if it starts off stunted that one thing will follow him to the block, and you will have to fight him all the way through his life. Usually you will lose money on him. That is another good point in having the mother right. And be sure that she is right, because she is the foundation of the litter. So you can see that everything points to the parent hogs, as they are the original foundation to your herds, and your suc- cess depends on that one point. It is an easy thing to keep a hog clean and free from germs if you start in time, but if you put it off too long you will have a hard fight. Here in the above cases is a good place to bring in one of the old adages, that a stitch in time saves HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 45 nine. This is another good principle to follow in hog raising. If a man will but follow a few of the old sayings and pay the proper attention to them he will avoid a greater per cent of all diseases among his animals, and he will find that it is the best insurance that he can possibly carry on his herd. Now let us take up The Average Herd. throughout the country, especially those that have been neg- lected for a long time. What has to be done in this case? We Will have to get something that will take a radical action on the system of the animal in order to realize anywhere near what is coming to us, even in the run down condition in which we find them. The main object in taking a radical action on the system is this — to loosen up the organs and get them to working as nature has intended them to work. Until you accomplish this point you cannot get the animal to utilize enough of the food to make it profitable to you. The animal may eat enough, but the more it eats the more it wastes. I have never seen the man who had any good grain to throw away, but there is lots of it thrown away in this manner. It is a great advantage to the raiser to keep the organs of the animal working to its full capacity, as when one organ is out of line it not long until 46 HATCH'S HOG SECRETS the whole system is out. Then you can look for trouble at any moment. The system is just like any other machine. When one single part is out of time it is not long until the rest goes to the bad. In Conclusion. I have endeavored to take you through the hog business -pretty thoroughly, and give you some points to study on. and T sincerely hope that you can see your way clear to adopt my system. I really believe you can. I am positive that if you try it out you will be ready and willing to shake my hand at the first opportunity we have of meeting. And I will grieve you just a little further. If I am ever in your neighborhood I would be pleased to call at your farm and talk this matter over with you, — that is to say, the hog proposition. Now as to the sanitary hog house that was mentioned in previous pages I will furnish you blue prints and specifications for fifty cents. And further I will answer any inquiry on re- ceipt of ten cents in stamps. I will further assist you in any way possible in the line of hogs and their troubles. Also as T have said before, if you succeed in getting an organization in your vicinity and it would be possible for me to attend one of your meetings, I surely will do so. as I would like to meet every hog raiser in the United States and have a per- HATCH'S HOG SECRETS 47 sonal talk with him, as I think it would do us both good and stimulate the business. I would also appreciate having a few lines from you at any time, as I always like to hear from those who are interested in the hog industry. Drop me a card when you have completed reading this book. Address C. P. Hatch, Garrett, Indiana.