1847. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



251 



and obey the laws of Nature, and the God of 

 nature will reward you liberally for your well 

 directed labor. Expect nothing truly valuable 

 without patient industry. Read books which are 

 worth reading as carefully as you would break 

 up a summer fallow for wheat. Allen's " Amer- 

 ican Agriculture" can be studied with advantage. 

 The persons who took the premiums at the 

 Fair, were all men of much thought, much study. 

 New England and New York mechanics evince 

 great research, such, in truth to speak, as one 

 seldom meets with among the mass of farmers. 

 The latter study too little. We hope not to give 

 ofTence. What we say is prompted from good 

 motives, and for a good purpose. All the intel- 

 lect associated with American agriculture, should 

 be fully and universally developed, to place this 

 great interest in the most successful, honorable, 

 and useful position of which it is capable. Un- 

 developed mind, in this country, is like a rich 

 garden unplanted, unfilled, and full of pernicious 

 weeds, whose prolific seeds are borne far and 

 wide by birds and winds, and scattered broad- 

 cast over the whole land. Wise and thorough 

 mental culture must precede wise and thorough 

 agriculture and horticulture in America, where 

 every man is a sovereign. If enlightened Reason 

 is to govern and direct the action of human 

 hands, it must be qualified for its office before 

 the duties of the same can be discharged aright. 

 Instinct will answer for brutes; but not for moral, 

 reasoning man. The farmer can no more do 

 without scientific knowledge in this age of the 

 world, than he can dispense with comfortable 

 food and clothing — dispense with civilization, 

 law, and religion. The great benefits which 

 science has conferred on our race, when known 

 to less than one in a thousand in the most en- 

 lightened nations, lead us to expect benefits a 

 thousand fold larger, when the most ignorant 

 shall know as much as the wisest now do. Give 

 every agriculturist, every mechanic a gooc 

 scientific and moral education, and no imagina 

 tion can conceive the blessings that will accrue 

 to our whole population, and indirectly, to the 

 whole of mankind. Onward and upward is our 

 destiny. Let no one hang back. 



To Extinguish Chimneys on Fire. — First 

 shut the doors and windows of the room contain- 

 ing the fire ; stop up the flue of the chimney 

 with a piece of wet carpet or blanket ; and then 

 throw a little water or common salt on the fire. 

 By this means the draft of the chimney will be 

 checked, and the burning soot will soon be ex- 

 tinguished for want of air. If every fire-place 

 were provided with a damper, or shutter of tin 

 plate, or sheet-iron, fitting sufficiently tight to 

 stop the draft, fires in chimnies would become 

 of little consequence, as it would only be neces- 

 sary to apply this damper to put them out. Let 

 this be remembered by the reader. 



Faitening Swine. — A Steaming Apparatus. 



An Ohio correspondent requests information 

 on the subject of cooking food for swine. As 

 the matter is one of considerable importance at 

 this season of the year, we think the following 

 extract from Allen's "American Agriculture" 

 will be read with interest and profit by maTiy of 

 our readers : 



Where there are many swine to fattrn, or grain is to be 

 fed, a steaming apparatus is at all times an economical ap- 

 pendage to the farm. It has been shown from several ex- 

 periments, that cattle and sheep will generally thrive as 

 well on raw as on cooked roots ; but horses do better on 

 the latter, and swine w ill not fatten on any other. For all 

 animals excepting store sheep, and perhaps even they may 

 be excepted, grain or meal is better when cooked. Food 

 must be broken up before the various animal organs can 

 appropriate it to nutrition ; and whatever is done towards 

 ejecting this object before it enters the stomach, diminish- 

 es the necessity for the expenditure of vital force in accom- 

 plishing it, and thereby enables the animal to thrive more 

 rapidly and do more labor, on a given amount. For this 

 reason we apprehend there may have been some errors un- 

 detected in the experiments of feeding sheep and cattle 

 with raw and cooked roots, which results in placing them 

 apparently on a par as to their value for this purpose. The 

 crushing or grinding of the grain insures more perfect mas- 

 tication, and is performed by machinery at much less ex- 

 pense, than by the animals consuming it. The steaming 

 or boiling is the final step towards its easy and profitable 

 assimilation in the animal economy. With a capacious 

 steaming-box for the reception of the food, the roots and 

 meal, and even cut hay, straw and stalks may be thrown 

 in together, and all will thus be most effectually prepared 

 for nourishment. There is another advantage derivable 

 from this practice. The food might at all times be given at 

 the temperature of the animal system, about 98 degrees of 

 Farenheit, and the animal heat expended in warming the 

 cold and sometimes frozen food, would be avoided. 



The steaming apparatus is variously constructed. We 

 have used one consisting of a circular boiler five and a half 

 feet long by twenty inches diameter, made ofboiler iron and 

 laid lengthwise on a brick arch. The fire is placed under- 

 neath and passes through the whole length and over the 

 end, then returns in contact with the boiler through side 

 flues or pockets, where it entered the chimney. This givee 

 an exposure to the flame and heated air of about 10 feet. 

 The upper part is coated with brick and mortar to retain the 

 heat, and three small test cocks are applied at the bottom, 

 middle and upper edge of the exposed end, to show the 

 quantity of water in it ; and two large stop cocks on the 

 upper side for receiving the water and delivering the steam, 

 completes the boiler. The steaming-box is oblong, seven 

 or eight feet in length, by about four feet in depth and width, 

 capable of holding 60 or 70 bushels, made of plank grooved 

 together, and clamped and keyed with four setts of oak joist. 

 We also used a large circular tub, strongly bound by wag- 

 on tire and keyed, and holding about 25 bushels. The cov- 

 ering of both must be fastened securely ; but a safety valve 

 is allowed for the escape of steam, which is simply a one 

 and a half inch auger hole. Into these, the steam is 

 conveyed from the boiler, by a copper tube, attached to the 

 steam delivery cock for a short distance, when it is contin- 

 ued into the bottom of the box and tub by a lead pipe, on 

 account of its flexibility, and to avoid injury to the food from 

 the corrosion of the copper. It is necessary to have the 

 end of the pipe in the steam-box, properly guarded by a 

 metal strainer, to prevent its clogging from the contents of 

 the box. We find no difficulty in cooking 45 bushels of un- 

 ground Indian corn in the tub, in the course of three or four 

 hours, and with small expense of fuel. Fifty bushels of 

 roots could be perfectly cooked in the box, in the same 

 time. For swine, fattening cattle and sheep, milch cowi~ 

 and working horses, and perhaps oxen, we do not doubt a 

 large amount of food may be saved by the use of such or a 

 similar cooking apparatus. The box maybe enlarged to 

 treble the capacity of the foregoing, without prejudicing the 

 operation, and even with a boiler of the same dimensions, 

 but it would take a longer time to effect the object. If the 

 boiler were increased in proportion to the box, the cooking 

 process would of course be accomplished in the same time. 



