232 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Ourselves and our Friends. —We have been 
highly gratified with the great number of sub¬ 
scriptions that have poured in upon us for some 
time past. We think our readers have set them¬ 
selves to work in earnest to enlarge our sub¬ 
scription list. Please keep the ball rolling, now 
that it is in motion, and at the present rate we 
shall soon have the largest circulation of'Rny 
paper in the country. Every new subscriber 
adds to our facilities for increasing the value and 
interest of the Agriculturist. 
Show your Paper to your Neighbors. —Our 
main reliance for increasing our subscription 
list is upon the individual efforts of our readers, 
each of whom will please consider himself in¬ 
vited and specially appointed an agent to solicit 
his neighbors to subscribe. This can best be 
done by showing them the paper and telling 
them your own opinion of it. 
A Double Number.— We send out this week 
a double number to several of our subscribers, 
so that they may have an extra copy to send to 
a friend or hand to a neighbor, without injuring 
or sparing their own copy. Will each person 
receiving the extra number please use it in this 
way, and if possible make it the means of re¬ 
turning at least one new subscriber. 
THE CASH PRIZES! 
Who will make an effort to secure one of 
these prizes? As was stated last week, our 
subscribers are distributed all over the Union, 
from Maine to Texas, in small clubs of three to 
twelve at a post-office, and any person by a lit¬ 
tle extra effort may make up one of the largest 
clubs at any particular office, and thus secure 
one of the cash prizes, which will repay him for 
any extra time or trouble it may cost. Six per¬ 
sons will receive these prizes on the 15th day of 
February. Who will use a little exertion and 
obtain one of them ? 
We invite attention to the economical arrange¬ 
ment for obtaining other periodicals in connec¬ 
tion with the American Agriculturist. We are 
at the trouble, responsibility, and expense of 
procuring and forwarding these at reduced rates, 
as prizes to individual subscribers. Those 
already subscribers can send on the name of a 
friend or neighbor, and receive the extra maga¬ 
zine or periodical himself. Publishers. 
The Cost and Value of an Agricultural 
Paper. —We wonder how many of our readers 
as they seat themselves by a comfortable fire at 
the close of a hard day’s work, would be willing 
to have their weekly paper taken from them un¬ 
read, for the trifling sum of four cents it may 
have cost them. The only difficulty is that 
while this luxury comes, fifty-two times in a year, 
the cost is all paid at once. 
How many times has the reader said to him¬ 
self when perusing some article, “Well, that 
article is of more value than the expense of the 
paper for a year.” These things should not be 
forgotten when the time for renewing the sub¬ 
scription annually comes round. 
-- 
Trformation wanted from Virginia. — A cor¬ 
respondent from Westchester County, N. Y., 
says a number of young farmers are now look¬ 
ing towards Virginia with a view of settling in 
that State, and they desire to get all the infor¬ 
mation they can in regard to the advantages and 
disadvantages of going there, instead of farther 
west. Our correspondent further asks whether 
in any part of the State free labor can be pro¬ 
cured in abundance ; whether it is worth while 
or necessary to take their hired men with them, 
&c. 
We have a large number of subscribers in 
different parts of Virginia, and we invite some 
of them to give the information asked for, which 
will doubtless be interesting to many of our 
readers in New-York and New-England. This 
will best be done we think, if some of the farm¬ 
ers will write down a plain account of their own 
method of conducting their farms, and also the 
general practice in their own neighborhood or 
county, including the price of land, the price 
of labor, the crops usually raised, and the ave¬ 
rage product and profits of farming in their 
vicinity. 
SWINE KILLING. 
Hog killing day is usually one of the days 
upon a farm, where there are half a dozen or 
a dozen porkers to be transferred from the fat¬ 
tening pen to the barrel. The assistance of 
neighbors is called in, and there is no small 
amount of previous preparation both in door 
and out door, such as preparing scalding-kettles 
and casks, extra fuel, looking up old gambles 
or making new ones, erecting hanging poles, 
sharpening knives, &c. Then the day is one of 
bustle, confusion, and noise, and the two or 
three following days are required for cutting up 
the hogs and pork-packing, making sausages, 
head-cheese, &c., and in getting all matters “ to 
rights” again. How different in one of the well- 
regulated swine-killing establishments at the 
West. Wc spent half a day at one of these at 
Cincinnati, where forty men were slaughtering 
at the rate of three and a half swine per minute, 
from 8 o’clock in the morning to 5 o’clock in 
afternoon, making over eighteen hundred in the 
nine, hours, and yet there was less bustling and 
confusion than we have witnessed upon a farm 
where a dozen swine wer e finished during a day, 
by half as many men and boys. 
The swine are driven up an inclined plane to 
an elevated platform, from which about thirty at 
a time are crowded into a small room adjoining 
the scalding vats. The door is closed, and a 
man with quick stunning blows with a small 
hammer, rapidly strikes down each of the thirty 
hogs. A door is then opened on the opposite 
side, and two men seize them by the legs, and 
drawing them out, arrange them in rows on an 
inclined platform of slats, with a receptacle be¬ 
low to catch the blood. The sticker passes 
along this row, and with one dexterous cut of 
the knife lets out the blood from each animal. 
In the mean time, another room adjoining is 
filled with a new lot, and the knocking-down 
process is there repeated. There is scarcely 
any squealing or noise; and we were assured 
that the bleeding is quite as free and perfect, as 
where the knife is used before the animals are 
stunned with the hammer. 
As soon as the swine have bled sufficiently, 
they’ are rolled off, one bj r one, into a scalding- 
vat, partly filled with water which is kept con¬ 
stantly hot b} r the admission of steam. The 
vat is about six feet wide, and perhaps fifteen 
feet long, and holds six or eight of the swine at 
a time, which are kept moving towards the far¬ 
ther end, where one at a time is floated upon a 
false bottom made with slats, and so arranged 
that by depressing a lever it is raised up, and the 
hog is lifted out of the water and rolled upon a 
table opposite to the bleeding platform. This 
table is quite long and inclined, and a row of 
men stand upon each side who pass the animal 
along from one to the other, each performing 
some part of the process of cleaning the sur¬ 
face. One pulls out and saves the bristles, 
another cleans the head, another the fore feet, 
and another the hind feet, and so on till the hog 
reaches the other end, where he is all dressed 
and gambled. 
The gamble is placed upon one of four hori¬ 
zontal arms, projecting from an upright shaft. 
He is then shoved off the main table upon an 
inclined one, down which the head slides by its 
own weight. Men stand ready with buckets of 
water and knives, he is washed and scraped 
down instanter, and another hog having been by 
this time hung upon another arm, the cross¬ 
pieces move round one quarter of the circle, 
where the entrails are speedily removed by a 
dexterous hand; the carcase is washed out, and 
at the next quarter turn it is shouldered by a 
strong man and carried away to the store-room, 
where all the swine slaughtered in one day, are 
hung up to drain and cool. The rapidity with 
which each of these processes are performed 
may be conceived, when it is remembered that 
each man performs his part of the work, upon 
each hog, in less than twenty seconds. 
The next morning, long before day, wagons, 
with large, high boxes, are driven to the store¬ 
room, and the dressed swine are taken to the 
packing-room, where they are weighed, cut up, 
and salted down with as great rapidity, as they 
"were slaughtered on the previous day. 
The whole work in and about the slaughter¬ 
ing and packing establishments is carried on 
with so much regularity, so little noise and con¬ 
fusion, and with so little apparent labor, that 
they are really worth visiting by every one who 
may chance to visit the neighborhood of Cin¬ 
cinnati, or any other place where this business 
is carried on extensively. 
-e o •- 
NEW-YORK HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
Conversational Meetings. —The first meeting 
for the discussion of subjects of practical in¬ 
terest to the cultivator of plants, fruits, and 
flowers, was held on December 12th, at the So¬ 
ciety’s room, 600 Broadway. From the interest 
taken in the questions proposed for discussion, 
it is evident that much benefit will arise from 
these meetings, and much information will be 
elicited of value to practical gardeners as well 
as to the amateur. An essay was read on the 
Cultivation of Fruit, by P. B. Mead, and the 
Cultivation of Roses in Pots debated by the 
members present, the majority of whom are 
connected with the profession. The information 
thus obtained is valuable, and we have pre¬ 
pared a report of the meeting, which will be 
published in our next number. 
-» ©«- 
Keep Memoranda.— It is highly useful to keep 
a daily record of the different transactions upon 
the farm, such as the time of sowing different 
crops, the ages of animals, &c., &c. Messrs. 
Francis & Louthel, Stationers, 17 Maiden Lane, 
have laid upon our table a neat little book, which 
is well adapted to this purpose. It has a ruled 
page for each day in the year 1854, with the 
date printed at the top of the page. 
