404 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
100 hogs were slaughtered per hour; but when 
in a hurry, 130 per hour could be slaughtered 
and dressed. About 25,000 hogs have been 
killed since the establishment commenced ope 
rations. The hogs have come in from the west 
by the New-York and Erie Railroad, and the 
pork has been chiefly disposed of in the New- 
York market. 
VENTILATION AND WARMTH. 
Tiie immense and almost universal ignorance 
of those things which are most necessaVy to our 
happiness imposes an awful penalty of disease 
and death upon mankind! 
Notwithstanding the immense amount of life 
and health dependent upon the arrangements 
for warming and ventilating our dwellings, and 
the vast amount of capital and skill employed 
in their construction, it is rare to find any cor¬ 
rect conceptions of what is necessary to human 
health and comfort. The malarious effects of 
cellars, basements, and under-floor spaces, 
pointed out in every essay on “ Consumption 
and'Architecture ,” are but a moderate portion 
of the evils under which we suffer. The great 
majority of American houses are constant gen¬ 
erators of inflammations, colds, consumption, 
and general debility. Let me as briefly as pos¬ 
sible point out the evils and their remedies. 
No apartment is healthy in winter, especially 
to delicate constitutions, unless it contains a 
sufficient supply of pure, fresh air, of uniform 
temperature, (say between sixty and seventy 
degrees Fahrenheit.) It is a very simple matter 
to secure this condition of health, but how few 
are the apartments in which it can be found! 
When an open fire-place is used, there is a 
large current of air passing up the wide chim¬ 
ney, (much larger, often, than is necessary,) and 
and it seems to be forgotten that just as much 
cold air from out of doors must be rushing in at 
the same time. It blows through every crevice 
of the windows, the door, and the wall, toward 
the fire-place. Sometimes, when we are sitting 
before the fire-place, the current rushing through 
the keyhole of the opposite door strikes us in 
the back almost with the precision of a pistol- 
shot. Wherever we sit we run the risk of hav¬ 
ing some of these freezing jets of air playing 
upon our backs, and if we are not conscious at 
the time of being wounded by these arrows of 
Boreas, we arc probably reminded by colds and 
rheumatic pains that our climate is rather severe, 
forgetting that the fault lies more in ourselves 
than in the climate. Besides these cold, pierc¬ 
ing currents, we have unnecessarily large win¬ 
dows—the thin pane's of glass are at a freezing 
temperature, and a sheet of cold air is continu¬ 
ally rolling down the surface of the window and 
falling upon the backs of verdant young gentle¬ 
men and ladies, who scarcely imagine, as they 
sit near the window, that they are doing any 
thing imprudent, or that the cold from which 
they suffer the next day is a just punishment of 
their ignorance. 
Who that is predisposed to pulmonary dis¬ 
ease can live in such apartments, with the addi¬ 
tional nuisance of having the door left open a 
dozen times a day, till the room is half filled 
with air at the freezing point ? The only safety 
for those of delicate health, consists in hugging 
close to the fire and toasting each side of the 
body alternately, turning round often enough to 
thaw each chilly portion of the surface. Thus 
many delicate females and invalids contrive to 
exist through the winter, or else (as it is 
not absolutely necessary that a man should 
live) they contrive to die, and charge the whole 
to an “ overruling Providence.” I am not ex¬ 
aggerating in this plain picture of every-day 
life in the winter. It is a terrible season for 
those who have not the stamina necessary to 
carry a fight with the climate unaided by art 
and science. The old and feeble die rapidly 
when the cold weather comes on—the colder the 
weather the faster they die—a mild winter saves 
many lives; but in every ordinary winter the 
mortality of the old and feeble is twice as great 
as in the milder seasons of the year, according 
to the best medical statistics. 
Why should this be so—why cannot our 
houses be as safe and comfortable in winter as 
in summer? Simply because the education of 
mankind looks to every thing which does not 
concern us first, and to all that is useful, last. 
The present generation were not taught any 
thing about the laws of health—they know noth¬ 
ing of the science of man; they do not even 
know that they are dying by millions for their 
ignorance. 
How shall we remedy the evils just men¬ 
tioned? A r ery easily—first make your apart¬ 
ments air-tight as near as possible. Then as the 
air needed by the fire and chimney cannot get 
in by crevices you must give it a regular en¬ 
trance, but instead of permitting it to come in 
cold and freezing as before, you must heat it as 
it enters, and thus have your apartment filled 
with warm air instead of cold. Insert a tube 
in the wall at the back of your fire-place which 
will be kept hot by the back of the fire; let one 
end of that tube be open to the outer air and 
the other end discharge into the apartment, by 
the side of your chimney, and let the inner end 
be a little higher than the outer end, so that the 
air heated in the tube may ascend as it enters 
the apartment. While the apartment is kept 
close there will be a current of air coming in by 
the tube, which ought to be about three inches 
in diameter at least. (Strips of iron inserted in 
it would render it more effective as a warmer.) 
If your tube should communicate with a rectan¬ 
gular iron box or air-chamber at the back of 
your grate, that would be still more effective. 
If you consider this plan too troublesome, as an 
amendment to your fire-place, a simpler plan 
might answer, viz.: to bore a hole through your 
chimney at any convenient point above the fire¬ 
place (say just above the mantlepiece) and pass 
through it a stovepipe four or five inches in 
diameter, communicating with the external at¬ 
mosphere. This pipe will be kept hot by the 
smoke in the chimney, and will warm all the 
air that passes through it into the apartment. 
It would be still more efficient if, instead of be¬ 
ing cylindrical, as the common stovepipe, it 
were flattened out in an illiptical form with a 
long diameter of twelve inches, which should be 
vertical, and a horizontal diameter of two inches, 
But all this will be of no avail, if you allow 
the air to enter by any other channel. First 
then, procure one of the new-fashioned springs, 
which shuts the door the moment you have 
passed through it. If it is not tight list the 
edges, if the windows are not tight stuff them 
with cotton, or paste paper over the crevices. 
Then you will have a warm uniform apartment, 
almost as cheaply warmed, and as comfortable 
as a stove apartment, with all the superior fresh¬ 
ness and pleasantness of the atmosphere which 
belongs to the open fire-place. 
But, why not at once resort to the cheap warm 
stove ? First, because the stove does not secure 
as complete ventilation as the fire-place; second, 
because the stove exerts an unpleasant influence 
upon the atmosphere which-some cannot endure; 
third, because the stove accumulates too great 
a heat in the upper portion of the apartment, 
leaving a stratum of cold air below, baking the 
head and freezing the feet—the worst possible 
treatment for persons of sedentary habits. 
But stoves might he, perhaps, as agreeable as 
fire-places. I would lay aside the iron stove 
entirely, and substitute the vitreous for the fe- 
ruginous surface, by adopting the stoneware or 
earthenware material, which gives a less intense 
but more pleasant heat. Then I would adopt 
the hot-air tube above recommended. Let a 
tube be fixed in the wall to introduce pure air 
from without to play against the stove and be 
heated before it mingles with the air of the apart¬ 
ment. A basin of water upon the stove to fur¬ 
nish the requisite moisture to the air would be 
very beneficial to those of weak or irritable 
lungs. Whenever there is any inflammatory 
condition in the passages, moist air has a very 
beneficial effect. 
The open Franklin happily combines the 
merits of stove and fire-place, and if to this the 
hot-air tube should be adapted the result would 
be very satisfactory. I have recently placed a 
wood stove in my dining-room, with the pipe 
going horizontally into the closed fire-place, and 
an air tube about eight inches in diameter sur¬ 
rounding the stove-pipe, so that the cold air as 
it enters snatches from the stove-pipe the neces¬ 
sary heat and throws a warm current toward 
the stove. 
The great benefit of the air-tube consists not 
only in economically returning to the apartment 
a certain amount of waste heat, but in its pre¬ 
venting the currents of cold air, which render 
our apartments unhealthful, and counteract the 
effects of the warmest fires. 
Ventilation or change of air is generally effect¬ 
ed with sufficient rapidity in winter by means 
of fire-places. In milder seasons the fire-place 
in each apartment (if it is not barbarously stop¬ 
ped up) will act as a ventilator, and if, when we 
retire to rest we should leave a candle burning 
in the fire-place, we would do much for ventila¬ 
tion. Our principal atmospheric evils arise from 
crowding too many together in one apartment— 
compelling the healthy to inhale the exhalations 
from the diseased and impure. In such cases 
.the arrangements for ventilation should be in¬ 
creased by larger air-tubes and fire-places—or 
if the hall must be warmed by furnaces or 
stoves, let an aperture be made near the ceiling 
for the escape of the warm foul air from the 
bings by lowering the upper sash, by making 
an opening into the flue of the chimney, or by 
inserting a large tube in the ceiling to conduct 
off the warm foul air through the roof. In regu¬ 
lating the atmosphere of crowded halls, capa¬ 
cious ventiducks should be constructed, having 
on opening near the ceiling to remove the upper 
stratum of air for ventilation, and another open¬ 
ing on the level of the floor which might be 
used alone, when it was desired to remove the 
cold air and assist in wai\ming the hall. 
It has been proposed and 1 believe attempted 
to ventilate public balls exclusively by these 
lower apertures. The plan is certainly econo¬ 
mical of heat, but would be entirely unsuitable 
for ventilation as it would not remove the foul 
air exhaled from the lungs and skin, (which as¬ 
cends,) until it had been very slowly brought 
back and kept for some time around the persons 
of the assembly. 
The free discharge of air through the venti¬ 
ducts would be impossible without the admission 
of a corresponding quantity. This might enter 
through the doors if they were left open, but it 
would be much better to introduce it by the hot 
air-tubes already described. 
The above suggestion as to ventiducts I have 
applied with satisfactory results to the halls of 
our college edifice, which are crowded during 
the winter. I hope, through your columns, they 
may reach the superintendents of hospitals, and 
and be applied to the preservation of life on 
board the ships transporting emigrants to Ame¬ 
rica.— Jas. R. Buchanan, in Tribune. 
SOWING CORN FOR FODDER. 
As spring will soon be upon us, it is reasona¬ 
ble to suppose that every practical farmer is 
laying out certain grounds for his various crops; 
and as the period in the history of agriculture 
has arrived when all farmers must economize, 
by putting in those crops which will most re¬ 
munerate him for his labor, as a means to effect 
this end, allow me to call the attention of prac¬ 
tical agriculturists to the subject of sowing corn 
for fodder. 
Last spring, I sowed about three acres of corn, 
intending to cut it green for soiling, but owing 
to the favorableness of the season for grass, but 
one acre was cut—the other two were cured for 
fodder. I have no doubt the produce from the 
one acre was equal to ten acres of ordinary grass 
made into hay. The best way to raise it, is to 
plow and harrow the ground as if for corn or 
| potatoes; then start the plow and let a man 
