218 
MANAGEMENT OF SWINE. NO. 1. 
three chambers suitable for a family of five or six 
persons. It is intended to be covered with boards 
laid on vertically and battened if not built of brick 
or stone — the chimney to be furnished with fancy 
shafts, and the gables with ornamental verge boards. 
The batten should be made of two-inch planks, and 
not of thin boards as is customary ; as this gives 
them a flimsy appearance, and detracts from the 
beauty of the whole. 
If it is desirable to build as cheap as possible, 
let the outside be of unplaned stuff, which I much 
prefer, and the inside finished with clear pine and 
varnished as soon as done, without painting. This 
gives a very pretty finish, and little furniture shows 
to much better advantage than in a painted room ; 
though some object to this on account of its sombre 
appearance. 
Fig. 52, is the ground plan, a, a, halls ; b, parlor ; 
c, bedroom ; d, kitchen ; e, pantry ; /, china 
closet ; g, g, fire places ; h, h, closets ; j, boiler ; 1c, 
chamber stairs with cellar stairs under them ; I, 
verandah ; m, woodshed ; n, bay window. 
The dimensions are not given, as they can be 
made to suit the wishes of the builder. Some 
might prefer to have the front room, c, used as a 
sitting room or library. This might be so occupied 
in summer, but it would be difficult to heat it in 
winter, without carrying a pipe through the chamber 
above. J. B. Davis. 
Boston, June, 1849. 
MANAGEMENT QF SWINE. -No. 1. 
We propose to make out a series of condensed 
articles in our succeeding numbers, on the best kinds 
of swine and their management throughout the dif- 
ferent sections of the country, and as no one per- 
son can be supposed to know every thing on every 
subject, we shall feel obliged to any of our experi- 
enced and intelligent readers, for any new or impor- 
tant information, practical, reliable, and to the point, 
on this topic. 
The number of swine at present in the United 
States, maybe fairly estimated at 20,000,000, which, 
at $3 per head, gives us the enormous amount of 
$60,000,000 invested in this article alone. There 
are in the single state of Ohio, over 2,000,000, and 
more than 500,000 have been slaughtered in Cin- 
cinnati in one season. 
From the rapid production and quick maturity of 
swine, they are made to yield a speedy return for 
the investment. The number of old and young, an- 
nually slaughtered in this country, probably does 
not fall below 10,000,000, worth in market an 
average of at least $5 each, giving as an annual 
return of $50,000,000 — our swine crop, thus, 
yielding an amount about equalling our entire cot- 
ton crop. Almost every man has his pig, while a 
comparatively small number have their cotton 
field. Nearly every one, therefore, has an interest 
in swine, and but few have an interest in the pro- 
duction of cotton. Yet cotton occupies a large 
share of public attention, while swine are scarcely 
noticed. 
The flesh of swine furnish more than half the 
meat consumed by the laboring portion of the Union, 
including those employed in the military and marine 
service and our merchant vessels. When from 
the best breeds, well fattened and well cured, pork 
forms one of the most nutritive, as it is the 
most popular of our meats. None is so highly rel- 
ished, and on none can a greater amount of labor 
be performed than on sweet, corned pork. It enters 
into a countless number of dishes, either as flesh 
or lard, imparting richness, flavor, and nutrition to 
all. And the juicy, delicious, corn-fed, well-pre- 
pared bacon is generally an acceptable dish on every 
table, saving only a Jew's or Mahommedan's. But 
the use and value of swine are not limited to food. 
Their carcasses are of vast and increasing import- 
ance in the useful and mechanical arts. 
When pork is abundant and cheap, large quanti- 
ties of it are converted into lard and oil. This 
is done not only with the more exclusively fatty 
portion of the meat, but frequently the whole car- 
cass is placed in a steam bath, and all the oily par- 
ticles are extracted. This, however, is purer when 
the skin is first taken off, that part yielding a more 
glutinous, visced oil, or fat, than the remainder. 
When thus removed, the skin affords a portion of 
inferior oil, and is afterwards converted into a leather, 
valuable for the saddler and for other purposes. The 
bristles are used for brushes, and the bones are 
made to afford some profit by being first reduced to 
charcoal, in which condition it is known as ivory 
black, and is extensively used by sugar refiners and 
others. 
The lard may be subjected to a pressure, which 
separates it into two substances, widely differing 
from each other, one being a pure oil, limpid in all 
weathers, and known as olein ; the other, a com- 
pact substance resembling the best mutton tallow, 
and melting only when exposed to considerable 
heat. Both are equally suited to the purposes of 
illumination, the former in lamps, the latter as can- 
dles. Extensive use is made of the oil for ma- 
chinery, and none is found, (from its purity and 
freedom from gumminess,) to answer a better pur- 
pose by lessening friction. 
Such being the value of swine to our domestic 
comforts and national products, every item of infor- 
mation that enables us to avoid disease, produce 
thrift, and augment their value, if intelligently and 
judiciously carried into practice, w T ill produce avast 
aggregate of annual profit to pork raisers through- 
out the country. We are particularly desirous of 
learning the most successful mode of treatment at 
the south, as it is there we hear the loudest com- 
plaints of thriftlessness, disease among these use- 
ful animals, and want of success in breeding them. 
*. 
A New Manure. — Mr. Robert Bryson, of Har- 
risburg, Va., has been experimenting for the last 
ten years, to make exhausted tan bark available as 
manure. His plan is this : He has tan wheeled 
out on a flat piece of ground, and leveled off 
two or three feet thick. Over this, he spreads 
a layer of two or three inches of lime, and over 
that a stratum of tan; then a layer of lime and so 
on. He lets the bed, so prepared, remain for two 
years ; at the end of that time, he finds himself in 
the possession of a bed of manure, the effects of 
which upon the land can hardly be surpassed, for 
the richness of its product, and the durable fertility 
it imparts. 
