very largely to the phenomenal prosperity of the pig
industry, in that a very large proportion of the land is owned and
farmed by comparatively small farmers, men who have a direct interest in
the improvement of the land, and who with their families perform the
major portion of the work on the land and in attendance on the stock.
The land is almost certain to be well managed and the stock to receive
the best possible attention with, comparatively speaking, little cost as
to labour. The animals on the farm are likely to be of a higher grade
and the returns from them of an increased character, than when strangers
and disinterested hired labour attend and feeds them.

Another of the great advantages possessed by some of our foreign
competitors is the very much better supply of feeding stuffs and their
very considerably lower cost. Take the United States, for instance, the
enormous supply of maize alone enables American pigmen to manufacture
pork at a cost which enables the packers to land bacon, hams, and lard
on the British shores which our home pig producers cannot approach.
Although it cannot be said that the cost of labour is less in the States
than in England, yet there are some countries from which we import pork
products where the labour is far more plentiful and less costly. In the
future the allowance for labour will have to be on a more liberal scale
than hitherto when estimating the cost of producing pork, unless the
number of persons owning and occupying small holdings is greatly
increased.

It has been stated that our home producers of pork and bacon will obtain
a considerable advantage in the future in that the freight on the
imported meats will be so much higher. It is most probable that this
will increase the expense of landing bacon, etc., on our markets; on the
other hand, as we import so large a proportion of the pig fattening
foods, the cost of food will most likely be increased to quite the same
if not to a greater extent. The only plan to reduce this extra expense
will be to lessen the outlay on imported foods by paying more attention
to the growth of various foods suitable for pigs, attending more
carefully to our pigs and feeding them on common-sense lines. In these
particulars there is room for much improvement in many piggeries.

By reducing the cost of the production of pork and by the more general
adoption of the system of home curing we shall not only obtain our bacon
at less cost, but we sha