32 
AMERICAN AGRICUETURIST. 
COOKED FOOD FOR FARM 
STOCK. 
This cut represents a 
very convenient affair re¬ 
cently invented for cook¬ 
ing food for stock by 
steam, in large tubs and 
boxes. It is a cast iron 
kettle, with flanges set in 
brick work. It has a 
cover with a flange to 
match the kettle, so that 
it can be converted into a 
boiler at once, and, with 
suitable pipes, steam can 
be conducted into any part of the barn or | 
piggery for cooking or warming food. 
Every farmer can see the advantage of 
such an apparatus as the above in this cold 
weather. It meets a want that has long 
been felt,—a cheap, convenient kettle, that 
may at will be changed to a boiler for ac¬ 
cumulating steam for any desirable purpose. 
In all new farm buildings an apparatus for 
cooking food should have a place. Well at¬ 
tested experiments show very conclusively 
the economy of cooking. Food enough will 
be saved in two seasons upon a large farm 
to pay for the expense of such a boiler as 
the above. Beef, pork, and milk are made 
much more easily with cooked food, and in 
a warm atmosphere, than by the ordinary 
methods in winter. This matter should 
have the attention of all farmers who are 
contemplating new buildings, or improve¬ 
ments in old ones. For further particulars 
consult our advertising columns. 
THE ESTHETICS OF THE STL 
A pig, when he first enters upon exist¬ 
ence, is not without beauty. Childhood 
admires his gambols, his ejaculations of 
surprise with pricked-up ears, his sleek 
white sides, as he hangs upon the breast. 
But beauty soon fades in the little porker, 
as in higher life. He is neglected, soils his 
fair skin, and becomes a loafer. Pigs should 
not thus be suffered to fall away from their 
original attractiveness. They are grunters 
by nature, and should never be suffered to 
squeal. They should live, the aldermen of 
the farmer’s stock, in easy circumstances. 
They are too often far otherwise in cold, 
wet weather. Kept in small filthy pens, 
with imperfect shelter, and very poorly sup¬ 
plied with straw, it is painful to see them 
wallowing through the accumulated snow 
and mud, and squealing their discomfort in 
tones that drown the wintry blast. But the 
esthetics of the sty are not to be named, in 
comparison with the economy of this care¬ 
lessness and filth. The pig should be kept 
as a gentleman in winter ; he needs not the 
puddle or any of its appliances for ridding 
himself of vermin. He will not thrive with¬ 
out a dry yard, and especially without a 
snug warm bed to sleep in. He should have 
a snug board floor beneath him, as well as a 
board roof above him, water-tight. The 
frozen earth, even with a straw covering, 
conducts away the heat of his body very 
rapidly. He wants underneath him the non¬ 
conducting wood to retain the heat. This 
greatly economizes food. Many farmers 
seem to think they have done their duty 
when they have protected their pigs from 
the droppings of the skies. But it is quite 
as important to protect them from the frost 
from beneath. A warm bed upon a board 
floor, we are persuaded, will make a differ¬ 
ence of twenty per cent, in the fattening of 
swine. Now is a time of leisure, and these 
little items of farm economy should be 
attended to. If you have not a snug warm 
lodging-house for pigs, let one be built imme¬ 
diately. It will pay a large interest on the 
labor and capital invested in it, as long as 
you continue to use it. 
PRESRVATION OF FORESTS. 
In this season of the year, when the wood¬ 
man’s axe is ringing through all our forests, 
prostrating millions of trees, it is a timely 
subject of inquiry, What is to be the result 
of this wholesale demolition I The price of 
wood for fuel is annually increasing, and 
that price will continue to increase with the 
scarcity. Wood for lumber is also becom¬ 
ing more scarce and costly; some of the 
finer sorts are even now hard to obtain, and 
that only in small quantities. Are we not, 
as a people, living too fast in this respect, 
as well as some others'? Wood and timber 
bring high prices in market, say the farm¬ 
ers, and why should we not realize the 
money ? Our wood lots are worth what 
they’ll fetch, and no more. Strip, the land 
of its trees, turn the forests into bank bills, 
and then we shall have more room to plant 
more corn, and so realize more bank bills. 
The chief end of man is to make money. 
That’s the English of it. So say too many 
of our land owners. 
But let us look at this matter more care¬ 
fully. Shall we estimate every thing by its 
value in ready money ? As prudent man¬ 
agers of our inheritance, shall we take rio 
thought for the future ? W T here will coming 
generations get their supplies of timber ? 
How will they lament the bleak and naked 
hills, and cry out against us for despoiling 
them of their chief beauty, and leaving be¬ 
hind us few or no traces of our forest 
scenery, except in the painted landscapes in 
our parlors ! If our forests are so valuable 
now for timber and-fuel, will they not be 
still more so to the next generation ? Then 
why strip them off so remorselessly? Rather 
let them be husbanded. Let them be thinned 
out, but not utterly demolished. A careful 
calculation shows that sixty thousand acres 
of pine wood are cut every year in the State 
of New-York, and that at this rate, in the 
year 1875, these trees will have disappeared 
from this part of the country: It is said, 
also, that “ the produce of tilled lands car¬ 
ried to tide water by the Erie Canal, in one 
year amounted to $8,170,000 worth of pro¬ 
perty ; that of farm stock for the same yeax 
is given at $3,230,000 ; that of the forests, 
in lumber, staves, &c.,at $4,770,000. Thus 
the fores! yielded more than the stock, and 
more than half as much as the farm lands.” 
Shall we, then, utterly and forever exhaust 
this source of comfort and wealth ? Let us 
beware, lest we kill the goose which lays 
such golden eggs! 
Forest trees should be preserved, also, for 
their beneficial influence upon the climate. 
It is universally conceded that the winters 
of the Northern States are colder now than 
they were thirty and forty years ago; and 
that the weather generally is more windy, 
fluctuating and disagreeable. We have 
greater extremes of heat and cold, and 
severer drouths. Peaches once grew in 
abundance throughout Central New-York; 
now, it is almost impossible to raise them. 
The wheat and some other crops are more 
uncertain. These things are ascribable, not 
so much to any deterioration of the soil, as 
to the destruction of our forests. Formerly, 
our farms had belts of wood land, which 
broke the force of the winter and spring 
winds; our hill tops were covered with bat¬ 
talions of trees which defended the slopes 
and vales. The snow was not blown off 
from the tender grain crops in winter, nor 
were the fields laid bare to the blighting 
winds of early spring. 
One of the greatest drawbacks to farm life 
on the Western prairies is the absence of 
forest trees. Wood for lumber and fuel is 
scarce, and houses and lands are exposed to 
the rake of merciless winds in winter and 
spring. Almost every mail brings accounts 
of extreme suffering at the West, on the 
open prairies. To make those lands a par¬ 
adise for the farmer, they need nothing so 
much as the kindly shelter of wood lands. 
In conclusion, we earnestly plead with 
the farmer for a more considerate use of his 
woods. Remove old trees, but touch the 
young with a sparing hand. Clear up your 
valleys, but do not strip bare the hill tops 
Leave groups and single trees here and 
there in your pastures, both for the comfort 
of-your flocks and herds, and for the beauty 
of the landscape. Plant belts along the 
north and west lines of your grain fields and 
of your houses. For purposes of shelter, 
evergreens are best; but mingle with these 
such rapid growing trees as the larch, scar¬ 
let-flowered maple, Dutch elm, basswood, 
and yellow locust. The time is coming when 
they who exert themselves to save the rem¬ 
nant of our noble wood lands, and who plant 
trees for the benefit of posterity, will be con¬ 
sidered wise men and public benefactors. 
