The lot without pasture required 3.71 pounds of grain to produce one pound of gain. Assigning the same value to the grain fed the hogs on rape pasture, we have 877 pounds of pork credited to the grain and 199 pounds credited to the rape. At six cents per pound, the price at which hogs were selling at the close of the experiment, this would be a credit of $11.90 per acre for the rape. In a similar manner, the alfalfa is credited with 201 pounds of pork, equal to $12.05, and as there was only a half-acre of alfalfa, this makes a rate of $24.10 per acre. The cost of preparing the seed bed and seeding the rape was $1.80 per acre. It was seeded in the feed lots, on soil that would otherwise have remained idle or would have grown up to weeds. The shoats on pasture enjoyed their diet and seemed satisfied. Those in dry lot seemed to be hankering after something green, and their appetites seemed unsatisfied without some kind of roughness. They would even nibble at straw, in a vain attempt to satisfy their craving. “The experiment,” says Prof. D. H. Otis, “emphasizes the superior value of alfalfa pasture. Where alfalfa is not available, or where variety is wanted, or it is desired to utilize otherwise waste land, Dwarf Essex rape, seeded at the rate of six to eight pounds per acre, any time from early spring to late summer, will furnish an excellent diet that is greatly relished by the hogs.” J. E. Woodford, of Coffey county, Kansas, April 1, 1905, placed ten choice pure bred Poland-China brood sows from twelve to eighteen months old that were due to farrow in the latter days of June, on a five-acre field of alfalfa. They were given no other feed than the alfalfa pasturage until they had farrowed and their pigs were a week old. After that the sows had in addition to the alfalfa some bran slop until about August 20, when new corn was fit for feeding. He says: “The sows from the time they were turned on the alfalfa until the last week in June made a remarkable growth, besides gaining somewhat in flesh. They did well with their pigs, reared an average of seven to each sow, and as sucklers they were a sight to see. The pigs were the most attractive bunch ever raised in Coffey county, as admitted by our breeding competitors. We weighed a gilt from this lot when six months and five days old, and her weight of two hundred and twenty-five pounds was not above the average of the whole lot. In our lifelong experience in rearing swine we have found nothing of the grass kind for them that in value approaches alfalfa.” A plat of thrifty, well-established alfalfa suitably fenced and used for pasturing swine of whatever age can scarcely fall short of being among the most profitable parts of any farm upon which swine husbandry is given attention. _CHAPTER XIV._ Alfalfa for Horses and Mules