PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Agricultural Experiment Station
Circular No. 35 LaFayette, Ind., March, 1912 SUPPLEMENTARY PASTURE CROPS
M. L. Fisher, Department of Soils and Crops F. G. King, Department of Animal Husbandry
The hog in his natural state is a foraging animal. Practically all forms of plant and animal life were consumed by wild swine in their search for food. So efficient, however, is the hog in converting grain into meat that it was formerly often the practice when corn was very cheap, to limit the fattening hog to an exclusive grain ration. The price of corn has been so high in recent years, however, that the most profitable returns could not be secured in pork production without considering the natural tendency of the hog and furnishing an abundance of pasture during the spring, summer, and fall. Lack of available pasture necessarily increases the cost of pork production.
The value of pasture is too generally known to need extensive discussion. Nevertheless, a few facts as to the actual reduction in the cost of producing pork by use of pasture may not be amiss. After several years’ experiments including five trials in dry lot and 15 trials on various forage crops, the Missouri Experiment Station drew the following conclusions:	“The average amount of
grain to produce a pound of gain with five dry lot experiments was 5.11 pounds and that when well balanced rations were used. The average amount of grain to produce a pound of gain with hogs on forage crops was 3.54 pounds. The forage crops effected a saving of 30.7 per cent in the amount of grain to produce a pound of gain. We may safely conclude from the above experiments that gains made with forage crops are made at 20 to 30 per cent less cost than the gains produced largely with grain. These experiments have shown that the profits per acre of forage when pork