20 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[January,. 
phur has been burned for 15 minutes. When the 
fruit is cold, pour on the top some hot mutton fat, 
then tie down with bladders.”—Notice the defini¬ 
tiveness of this.—You must have jars ready in which 
“sulphur is burned for 15 minutes.”—How big the 
jars, or how much sulphur, seems to be of no more 
consequence than what is to be done with the jars 
after 15 minutes of burning sulphur. “When the 
fruit is cold ”—in the “ preserving pan,” or where ? 
—it is to be greased with “ hot mutton fat.” Burnt 
brimstone and mutton tallow, what a combination ! 
It is no wonder that the English housekeeper can’t 
can, while every American housekeeper can can, 
and so easy too, without burnt brimstone or hot fat! 
Farming for Profit. 
The most profitable farming is that which gives 
the largest returns for the smallest comparative 
outlay. This statement is based on business prin¬ 
ciples, but it is 
not always ap¬ 
parently true, 
for sometimes 
a farmer gets 
large crops with 
small outlay by 
the use of means 
w h i c h draw 
heavily upon 
the reserve 
forces of the 
soil. The lat¬ 
ter should be 
reckoned into 
the expense ac¬ 
count, but usu¬ 
ally is not, 
though if such 
a course is con- 
Fig.l. TABLE FOR DRESSING PORK. tinued ,it results 
in exhaustion. To revise the first statement then : 
that kind of farming is most profitable which gives 
the largest returns for the expense incurred, with¬ 
out decreasing one’s capital by exhausting the soil. 
English agriculture dates its rise from the begin¬ 
ning of the fattening of animals for market. The 
most fertile farms in the Eastern States to-day, are, 
as a rule, those that are devoted to stock and daily¬ 
farming. The production and sale of large crops of 
grain, potatoes, and other field crops, without any 
return of fertility, has caused the present sterility 
of the many thousand acres of comparatively ex¬ 
hausted farm lands, West, South, and East. If their 
owners had kept live stock for the consumption of 
the crops, and sold only the animal products and 
the surplus grain, etc., they might have been even 
more productive to-day, than in the beginning. The 
growth of plants does not exhaust the soil, but on 
the contrary makes it richer, so long as the mineral 
and nitrogenous elements of plant-food are returned 
to the land. The action of the roots is to extract 
food material from the rocks (as we may regard the 
inorganic matter of the soil), and of the leaves to 
draw it from the air, and to store it in the soil; but 
if more than the material thus obtained is removed 
and not returned, exhaustion necessarily follows. 
By feeding crops to animals, the larger portion of 
the essential mineral and nitrogenous portions are 
returned to the soil in the resulting manure ; par¬ 
ticularly is this the case in fattening mature ani¬ 
mals,'and in the production of butter and pork. An 
animal extracts from its food, nitrogen for its mus¬ 
cles, phosphate for its bones, some potash, and the 
vegetable oils and other carbonaceous matter for 
its fatty tissues and for respiration. The nitrogen, 
phosphates and potash, we must supply to the soil, 
as plants seldom obtain these materials from nat¬ 
ural sources so rapidly as we remove them in 
crops sold ; the material for oils, sugar, starch, 
and other carbonaceous matters are furnished to 
the plants from air and soil in ample quantities to 
meet all demands. Now, a growing animal stores 
up the first three of these food materials. A ma¬ 
ture animal, on the contrary, only uses enough of 
them to make good the wastes of the body, but 
these wastes are all found in the excrements; so 
that practically a fattening animal removes none of 
those constituents of its food that are valuable for 
manure. We can, therefore, feed the home-grown 
crops and purchased food to mature animals, and 
get nearly or quite its full value twice over, in beef 
and in manure for the production of more crops. 
Similar principles apply in feeding swine. Pork 
is for the most part composed of the fatty matter 
which costs nothing in the crop. Hence the value 
of hog-manure, with which every farmer is familiar. 
In butter-making also, very little if any fertility is 
removed from the farm in the butter sold, as it is 
composed wholly of-fatty compounds. This fact is 
illustrated in practice by the exceptional fertility of 
butter dairy farms, which, instead of becoming 
sterile are continually growing more fertile. These 
facts indicate that the profitable farming of the fu¬ 
ture in many sections, is to be, as it is to-day, in in¬ 
creased attention to fattening animals and dairying. 
Hog-Killing Implements—Ringing. 
While on the farm of J. W. Morrison, in Orange 
County, N. Y., not long ago, we saw some conven¬ 
ient and ingenious appliances, that would be useful 
elsewhere. Mr. M. makes butter from about 20 
cows, churning the whole milk, and feeding the 
butter-milk to his swine. In his piggery is a room 
for slaughtering. The stout table on which the 
dead porkers are lain to be scraped and dressed 
after being scalded, is made with its top curving 
about four inches in a width of four feet, and con¬ 
sisting of strips of oak plank, as represented in fig¬ 
ure 1. This curved top conforms to the form of 
the carcass, and holds it in any desired position 
better than a flat surface. For scrapers, old-fash¬ 
ioned iron candle-sticks are used; the curved and 
sufficiently sharp edges at either end serving as 
well as a scraper made for the purpose, and its 
small end has an advantage 
over the latter for working 
about the eyes and other sharp 
depressions, (see fig. 2). A 
cleaver for use in cutting up 
the pork is shown in fig. 3 ; it 
has a 13-inch blade, 3 inches 
wide at the widest part, and i 
inch thick at the back. This is 
a convenient implement, easily 
and cheaply made by a good 
blacksmith, if it can not be had 
at the "stores; any mechanic 
Fig. 2. can put on the wooden handle. 
In figure 4, is represented Mr. M.’s home-made 
liog-ringing apparatus. His blacksmith makes an 
instrument resembling a horse-shoe nail, of good 
iron, about 3 inches long, 3 /, G t.h of an inch wide, 
and V 32 d of an inch thick, tapering to a point; the 
“head” is merely the broad flat end curled up. 
Just before using, this needle-like instrument has 
its corners rubbed off on a file ; it then is easily 
pushed through the septum of the pig’s nose. 
Fig. 3.— HANDY MEAT CLEAVER. 
A key with its tongue broken off and a slot filed 
in the end, is used to curl up the projecting end, 
and the ringing is done. The “rings ” cost about 
75 cts. a hundred, are effective and easily applied. 
Exportation of Live Animals. 
The following is the text of that portion of a bill 
recently passed in the British Parliament relating 
to the importation of animals, which concerns the 
interests of American cattle breeders and exporters: 
1. Foreign animals are to be landed only at a part of a 
port defined for that purpose by a special order of council, 
called a foreign animals wharf. 
2. They are to be landed in such manner, at such times, 
and subject to such supervision and control, as the Com¬ 
missioners of Customs from time to time direct. 
3. They are not to be moved alive out of the wharf. 
“ This law is to go into effect on the first day of Janu¬ 
ary, and is to include all foreign cattle, except. (1) those 
from the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands; (2) those 
intended for exhibition or for other exceptional pur¬ 
poses ; and (3) those, the landing of which is for the time 
being prohibited by order of council. 
“ In relation to the foreign animals, if. and as long as, 
from time to time, the Privy Council are satisfied, with 
respect to any foreign country, that the laws thereof re¬ 
lating to the importation and exportation of animals, and 
to the prevention of the introduction and spreading o£ 
disease, and the general sanitary condition of animals 
therein, are such as to afford reasonable security against 
the importation therefrom of diseased animals, then,, 
from time to time, the Privy Council, by general or spe¬ 
cial orders, shall allow animals, or any specified kind of 
animals, brought from that country, to be landed, with¬ 
out being subject under the provisions of this schedule, 
to slaughter or to quarantine, and may for that purpose 
alter or add to these provisions, as the case may require; 
but every such order shall forttiwith, after the making 
thereof, if Parliament is then sitting, and if not then, 
forthwith after the next meeting of Parliament, be laid 
before both houses of Parliament.” 
The bill is apparently a necessity, to protect Eng* 
lish herds from _ 
imported dis¬ 
eases, which have 
caused immense 
losses. We un¬ 
derstand that the 
British Govern¬ 
ment has called 
on our Govern¬ 
ment for a state¬ 
ment as to the 
provisions 
agains t the 
spread of and 
protection from 
disease in this 
country. If the 
truth be told, a 
lamentable con¬ 
dition of veteri¬ 
nary science will 
be shown up,that 
we hope will rouse the Government and people to 
remedy the evil. One evident result of this law will 
be to increase the foreign exportation of dead meat. 
Fig. 4.—HOG-RINGER AND KEY. 
Keeping Poultry in Cities. 
“ D.,”. Springfield, Mass., sends to the American 
Agriculturist his poultry account for two years, to 
show that fowls can be profitably kept in a city : 
Nov. 1, 1876. — Dr. 
Material for house. 
Paid cash for 10 fowls. 
Paid cash for Leghorn eggs for setting 
Paid cash for feed for one year. 
Cr. 
741 doz. eggs, @ 25c. 
36J lbs. meat, © 18c. 
14 Brown Leghorns, © 60c. 
13 Brown Leghorns, @ 50c. 
House.. . 
$7.00 
5.00 
75 
15.22 
$27.97 
$18.62 
6.52 
8.40 
6.50 
6.00 
$46.04 
Nov. 1, 1877.— Dr. 
House. $6.00 
14 Brown Leghorns, © 60c. 8.40 
13 fowls, © 50c. 6.50 
Feed, one year.. 16.17 
$37.07 
Cr. 
1644 doz. eggs, © 23c.$37.70 
74$ lbs. meat, @ 16c. 11.92 
17 Brown Leghorns, @ 60c.. 10.20' 
6 Plymouth Rocks, © SOc. 3.60' 
5 chickens, © 30c. 1.50 
House. 5.00 
$70.01 
My hen house is charged for cost of material 
only, doing the work myself. Its dimensions are 
4 feet by 6 ; 5 feet high on sides, 7 feet in center 
the run is 30 feet by 4 feet, of which 15 feet is cov¬ 
ered in the winter. House and run face the south. 
The fowls are confined when they would interfere 
with the garden, except letting them out on a vacant 
lot near sun-down. I have 22 fowls in the house 
now, the balance in a dry goods case used for rais¬ 
ing chickens. I kept an average of 17 through last 
winter. These accommodations seem small for the 
number of fowls, but the}’ thrive and are healthy ; 
have lost three in the two years, from accident. I 
screen coal ashes over their droppings nearly every 
morning, and clean out often. I think this is the 
secret of their healthiness. The fowls kept last 
year were Brown Leghorns, and three Buff Cochins 
for mothers. For feed, I give them in the morning 
corn-meal and wheat middlings, equal bulk, in 
winter mixed with warm water ; afternoon, wheat* 
buckwheat, table-scraps, oats, etc., changed often.. 
