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Show LIVESTOCK SITUATION One of the most important agricultural agri-cultural activities is the work which is being done in organizing boys' and girls' calf, pig and lamb clubs. This work is of nationwide scope and s particularly important because in most cases, the youngsters are started start-ed right out with high class, purebred pure-bred livestock so that the fundamental fundamen-tal idea of producing high quality products is inculcated into the young minds. Many of the most successful of the younger generation of livestock live-stock producers in practical business operation today are the graduates of these boy and girl clubs. An idea of the fundamental facts which these students receive in their club work may be gained from the high honors won at the largest livestock live-stock exhibitions. An Iowa boy wins the grand championship on his club steer, in competition with veteran feeders and breeders at the Chicago international livestock exposition. Another An-other youngster from the same state won the same honor in a steer carcass car-cass contest. At the recent Fort Worth, Texas, exposition, there were more than seventy club steers entered en-tered by as many boys and girls. Club work in schools and colleges is gaining in the western country. As an example, the students of one California union high school have gained recognition as being the largest larg-est breeders of purebred hogs of a certain breed in the entire state. Experienced Ex-perienced instructors and breeders started these boys on the right track by supplying them with purebred stock, adapted to west coast market demands. They won many blue rib-bins rib-bins at the state and county livestock live-stock shows; they have sold breeding stock from one end of the state to the other and have even sold breeding breed-ing stock to South America. Pig clubs are particularly good for boys and girls in the Pacific Coast states. There is a great demand for more home-raised pork in the western states and more than this, the climatic cli-matic and feed conditions are ideally suited for pork raising. Another attractive at-tractive feature of the pig club is that in the mild climate in many of the western districts, the boys are enabled to reap two pig crops a year from each sow. The average number of pigs per litter saved should be around seven, or fourteen every twelve months. With six to eight months old pigs commanding around ?20.00 per head on the market and much more if of choice breeding type, it may be seen that there is ample opportunity for profit. An important consideration in encouraging en-couraging such activity is to make certain that the correct type of breeding breed-ing stock is obtained in the first place, and secondly, that the youngsters understand un-derstand the type and weight of animal ani-mal required by their nearest market. On the Pacific Coast, a bacon type pig is required as the demand is almost al-most entirely for lean meat. In oth-, oth-, er words, the heavy lard type, of hogs is not profitable to raise because of the narrow market demand for such a carcass, and the fact that the heavy j hog is more costly to produce. In the contests at the various western west-ern livestock shows, the market types should always be born in mind, as the idea of such displays is, first, to permit per-mit the meat distributor to obtain something particularly choice for his trade, and second, to make such exhibits ex-hibits educational, so that the general gen-eral run of producing excessive weights, whether of hogs, cattle or lambs, is fundamentally wrong. For instance, prizes have been offered in the corn belt for the producer who could make a single litter of pigs weigh the most at six months. Such a contest is out of keeping with Pacific Pa-cific Coast market requirements, because be-cause the pigs under forced feed would weigh far too much for practical practi-cal market purpose. Lambs are gaining in popularity due to the fact that so much of the western country is well adapted to sheep production. In one such club, the members reported a 175 per cent lamb crop or one and three-quarters lambs for every ewe. These lambs were sold for an average of $12.50 per head and wool from the ewes probably was worth around $2.50 per head. In this case, al:-o, the youngsters young-sters were given the best quality of sheep available so that the lambs were of ideal market type, thus commanding com-manding the highest market price. |