1884.J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



li 



ly goose has more ditflculty in raising her 

 progeny. Owing to their more cumbrous lo- 

 comotion tliey are more liable to accidents of 

 various kinds than dncl<s, and the same ene- 

 mies beset them as lay in wait for their more 

 diminutive cousins. The tlesh of both goose 

 and duck is dark, and when they are well fed 

 or "brought up" in the salt water localities, 

 it is fatty and somewhat of a fishy nature, 

 whicli are generally^preferred by the few and 

 disliked by the nmny.—Pliihulelphia Ledger. 



NIGHT AIR. 



An extraordinary fallacy is the dread of 

 night air. What air can we breathe at night 

 but night air? Tlie choice is between pure 

 night air without, and foul air from within. 

 Most people prefer the latter. An unaccount- 

 able choice. What will they say if it is proved 

 to be true that fully one-half of all the diseases 

 we suffer from are occasioned by people sleep- 

 ing with their windows shut? An open 

 window, most niglits in the year, can never 

 hurt any one, in great cities night air is often 

 the best and purest to he had in twenty-fours. 

 I could understand shutting the windows in 

 town during tlie day than during the night, 

 for the sake of tlie sick. The absence of smoke, 

 the quite, all tend to make the night the best 

 time for airing the patient. One uf our liighest 

 medical authorities on consumption and clim- 

 ate has told me tliat the air in London is never 

 so good as after ten o'clock at night. Always 

 air your room from the outside air, if possible, 



Windows are made to open, doors are made 

 to shut— a truth which seems extremely diffi- 

 cult of apprehension. Every room must be 

 aired from witliout-every passage from within. 

 But the fewer passages there are in a hospi- 

 tal the better. 



STATISTICS. 

 Statisticians have pronounced the United 

 States to be not only potentially, but actual- 

 ly, richer than the United Kingdom. Count- 

 ing the houses, furniture, manufactures, 

 railways, shipping, bullion, lands, cattle, 

 crops, investments and roads, it is estimated 

 that there is a grand total in the United 

 States of $49,770,000,000. Great Britain is 

 credited with sometliing less than $40,000,- 

 000,000, or nearly $10,000,000,000 less than 

 the United States. The wealth per inhabitant 

 in Great Britan is estimated at Sl,160, and in 

 the United States S895. With regard to the 

 remuneration of labor, assuming the produce 

 of labor to be 100, in Great Britain 5G parts 

 go to the laborer, -21 to capital and 23 to Gov- 

 ernment. France, 41 parts go to labor, 30 to 

 capital and 23 to (iovernment. In the United 

 States 72 parts go to labor, 23 to capital, and 

 5 to Government. 



CARE OF SWINE IN THE WEST. 



The approved method of handling swine 

 here in Eastern Wisconsin differs from that 

 employed in the great corn Vielt, and ap- 

 proaches more nearly to practice in the Mid- 

 dle and Eastern States. In the first place, 

 select the best sows your means will admit of, 

 then procure a pure-bred boar as near your 

 idea of a model hog as possible— a few dollars 

 extra expended in getting a choice animal is 

 money well invested. We breed our sows to 

 farrow from the 20th of April to the 20th of 



May, on account of our long winters, and I 

 raise but one litter a year from a sow. The 

 sows 're fed during the winter on ground or 

 cooked feed— barley or wheat middlings are 

 good feed— but we do not want to feed ranch 

 corn dry, as it induces costiveiiess, and there 

 is not bulk enough about the ('oru without 

 feeding too much. 



The sows should be in smootli, Heshy con- 

 dition, not fat, wlien they have their pigs. 

 The first day or two they should have no feed 

 but a little slop. Gradually increase the feed 

 until the pins are three weeks old, when the 

 sow sliould be fed all she will eat. The place 

 where the sow is kept should be arragned to 

 allow the little pigs to slip out. Place a small 

 trough where they will get to it, and when 

 they are two weeks old they will drink a little 

 sweet milk. Scatter some soaked grain— corn 

 is the best— on the lloor and they will quickly 

 learn to pick it up. If pains are taken they 

 will eat greedily at three or four weeks old, 

 and ever thereafter they should be wliere they 

 can run on gras.s. After they eat well I feed 

 them on meal wet witli milk, or, if I have but 

 little milk, I feed them soaked corn, with 

 warm drink made of fine meal, or middlings 

 thinned with water and what milk I have. I 

 wean the pigs when ten weeks old. 



Soaked corn is prepared by soaking shelled 

 corn in cold water twenty-four to thirty-six 

 hours, that is until it is fully swelled bui not 

 sour. There is no food which pigs like better 

 or upon which they will make better growth. 

 Feed three times a day all they will eat up 

 clean. Never allow a pig to get hungry, and 

 do not feed so abundantly that anything is 

 left. Give them a warm, dry place to sleep 

 in. With this care hog cholera would be 

 everywhere, as it is here, an unknown dis- 

 esis.— Press. 



IS THE PROCESS OF COOKING A 

 KNACK. 



It is said that there is a " knack " in cook- 

 ing. If this means that there is a sort of 

 separate sense or instinct which enables its 

 possessor to cook well, and debars those who 

 do not have it from ever acquiring proficiency 

 in that direction, we deny it in toto. In cook- 

 ing, as in every other kind of work, earnest- 

 ness and brains are the two needful requisites 

 tfl success, though these may tail of the high- 

 est, unless accompanied by an acute and cul- 

 tivated sense of taste. The art of tasting 

 must be learned and practiced faithfully, if 

 one would become a good cook. As a pud- 

 ding or a gravy, or a soup approaches its final 

 stage of preparation, it should invariably be 

 tasted, until long experience has made one 

 sure that it is neither too salt nor too sweet, 

 too peppery nor too flat. A tea-cup and tea- 

 spoon should stand beside the range, for this 

 purpose, though it is, of course, unnecessary 

 to say tliat the tasting spoon should never be 

 introduced into tlie kettle. Another kind of 

 knowledge indispensable to a good cook, is a 

 thorough understanding of the range or stove 

 upon which one is cooking. No matter how 

 carefully a thing may be compounded, if it is 

 imperfectly boiled or baked, or fried, it is 

 spoiled. Be sure that every damper and 

 draft is understood before undertaking to 

 cook with a new range. Then be sure that 

 the ovens are right, that there is just coal or 



wood enough in the fire and that the heat is 

 likely to be " even " while the cooking is go- 

 ing on. As in painting it is necessary to un- 

 dei-stand anatomy and natural liistory, and a 

 dozen other departments, wliich at first 

 would not occur to one as connected in the 

 least with anything artistic, so in cooking the 

 departments of good eating and of the man- 

 agement of stoves and ranges must be under- 

 stood before any culinary heiglits can be at- 

 tained. I set it down as an incontrovertible 

 fact tliat a person who does not know good 

 cooking— and there are thousands of such 

 pi,ople— can never make a good cook himself ; 

 that a person who does not know good butter 

 from poor— who uncomplainingly cats sour or 

 " soggy " bread, day after day, not knowing 

 but that ho is well served ; whose doughnuts 

 are soaked witli fat ; whose roast beef is dry 

 and burned, and whose steaks are smoky and 

 juiceless— that such a person will never be a 

 good cook. Also, it is generally conceded on 

 all sides, that a person long in the habit of in- 

 correct cooking is incapable of learning better, 

 which, indeed, U implied in what has bden 

 said l)efore. If your poor cook is a mature 

 woman and does not display uncommon earn- 

 estness, or reraarkiible acuteness, she is a 

 hopeless case. Discharge her and get a 

 younger one. In youth alone, in such a case, 

 is there hovo.— Helen Decia, Ithaca, Jf. Y. 



FARM DRAINAGE. 

 Drain tiles are made of brick clay, and of 

 various sizes and shapes. The -lengtii of the 

 tiles is usually about twelve to fourteen inches. 

 The thickness of the wall of the tube depends 

 upon the quality of clay employed and the 

 size of the tile. The sides of the tile are more 

 or less porous, but this is of very little im- 

 portance, as the water enters almost entirely 

 through the joints or space between the ends 

 of adjoining tiles. The manufacture of drain 

 tiles does not concern us, even thought it 

 might pay for the farmer, with larger areas to 

 drain, to make liis own tile, provided the 

 proper kind of clay is close at liand. 



The leading kinds of tiles are the " horse 

 shoe," "sole," " double sole " and "round." 

 The first form takes its name from the re- 

 semblance of the cross-section'of the tile to;a 

 horse's shoe— the bottom being open. This 

 form of tile has no valuable qualities not pos- 

 sessed by others and is so ocjectionable for 

 some reasons that it has gone almost out of use. 

 The "sole" tile has a wide, flat bottom. In 

 drying, before burning, these tiles contract 

 upon the upper side, thus becoming beni, and 

 are laid with difficulty. These "sole" tiles 

 cannot be put together with collars, now 

 much used and highly recommended. The 

 "double-sole" tile has a sole upon the upper 

 side, which does away with any warping in 

 drying. Such tiles are, however, so heavy 

 that they cannot be transported cheaply. The 

 objection of not being adapted to cellars is 

 also a great one. It is thus seen that the 

 "round" tile is the tile for the million. On 

 this point Colonel Waring, in his "Draining 

 for Profit and Health," says : " Eperience in 

 both public and private works in this country 

 and the cumulative testimony of English and 

 French engineers have demonstrated that the 

 only tile which it is economical to use is the 

 best that can be found, and the best— much 



