![]() Naturally, they squealed and hollered when they knew I had them, but I can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can first get him to depend on me for a free handout!" At the right moment, I built a trap door and sprung it. ![]() About that time, I started building a fence around the clearing, a little higher each day. They stopped grubbing for acorns, and roots on their own. Then the older ones began taking the corn, probably figuring that if they didn’t get it, some of the other ones would. Then after a few days, some of the young ones would come out, snatch some corn, and then scamper back into the underbrush. At first, none of the hogs would take the corn. ![]() Then I put some corn in the center of the clearing. "The first thing I did," the stranger said, "was to clear a small area of the woods with my axe. People were amazed and came from miles around to hear him tell the story of how he did it. He said he had them all penned up in the woods. Two months later he returned, went back to the store and asked for help to bring the hogs out. The stranger left with his one-horse wagon, an axe, and a few sacks of corn. He asked the storekeeper, "Where can I find the hogs? I want to capture them." The storekeeper laughed at such a claim but pointed in the general direction. One day a stranger came into town not far from where the hogs lived and went into the general store. No one thought they could ever be captured. They had survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs, and everything else. These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, and independent bunch. There’s an old story worth retelling about a band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a secluded area of Georgia. This article is from a speech before the annual meeting of the Michigan Association of Timbermen, Gaylord, Michigan, April 21, 1979. Reed is Assistant Professor of Economics at Northwood Institute, Midland, Michigan. ![]()
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