REVIEW OF THE JULY NUMBER OP THE AGRICULTURIST. 
one to go into the business ; as I believe it would 
truly be a most valuable establishment for the peo¬ 
ple to have a place where they could, at all times, 
be able to buy just such a cow as desired. 
Spare the Birds.— 7 It is of no use preaching this 
doctrine. It never will be practised before men suf¬ 
fer just as the coffee planters of Madagascar did. 
Children are educated from infancy to destroy the 
birds, instead of studying their natural habits. It 
is true, that, in some parts of the country, the birds 
are in such excess as to do great injury to the farm 
crops; as, for instance, upon the great western 
prairies, or forest lands of Indiana and Illinois, 
where I have seen blackbirds by the million, and 
pigeons by the billion; but it must be borne in 
mind that it is in those states where we have seen 
accounts published of the “ ravages of the army 
worm,” that show that there is a full supply 
of worms for all the millions and billions’ of 
birds. 
Method of Excluding Drones from the Hive .—If 
this method of the ancients is worth anything, the 
Yankees can improve upon it. Instead of spread¬ 
ing a fine net over the entrance, have a wire-work 
door that can be shut at any time, so as to exclude 
the drones and admit the workers through the 
meshes. 
Summer Management of Sheep .—The directions 
here given about storing wool, are all upon too 
large a scale to suit ninety-nine out of every hun¬ 
dred readers. Pray, give something to suit that 
class who have never kept a flock and propose to 
start one of a hundred or more. Directions are 
given about “ hoppling,” &c., which is directly fol¬ 
lowed by the truism that it is owing to “ poor 
fences” that they were learned to jump—another 
evidence of the fact that fences are the greatest 
curse of the American farmer. Thousands are 
deterred from keeping sheep, because of the system 
of trying to keep up fences where they cannot be 
kept up except at ruinous expense, and, in conse¬ 
quence, they are such as are just fit to teach sheep 
to jump. If there were no fences in many dis¬ 
tricts of country, how easy it would be for a neigh¬ 
borhood to combine and keep a real Nantucket 
sort of a flock. 
Salting sheep is best done by making a perma¬ 
nent “lick,” either of rock salt or by making salted 
clay balls, to be kept under a shed where they 
can go to it at all times. 
In places where there is no natural shade, as 
upon the western prairies, a very good and cheap 
one can be made by setting a row of posts six feet 
long, four and a half feet above the surface, ten 
feet apart each way, with stout rails across, and 
covered with brush first, if convenient, and then 
with coarse hay. This would be all the better if 
an embankment of earth could be thrown up along 
one side. Such a cheap shade would pay cost 
every season, besides the humanity of the thing. 
It -would also be beneficial to the flock in cold 
storms. 
Clothes and Wool-Drying Machine .—If this new 
invention is anything like what this description 
recommends it to be, it ought to be immediately in¬ 
troduced into general use in this country. It is 
described as an English article. Has one ever 
been tried on this side of the water ? 
34 * 
Cotton Manufacturing at the South .—Why here 
is an account of more of it in Mr. Robinson’s let¬ 
ter than I had ever dreamed of in my philosophy 
before. It is a very interesting statistical article, 
and shows a great advance in manufacturing inter¬ 
est in the very country of ail others that should 
make her own cotton fabrics. 
Rural Architecture .—I have often entertained the 
same opinion here expressed by Mr. Davis, that 
the “ American Agriculturist” is eminently calcu¬ 
lated by its common-sense articles to commend 
itself to every intelligent housekeeper in the coun¬ 
try ; and yet it does not. Why % Because agri 
cultural education has never been taught in our 
common schools, and because a taste for reading 
such works, has not been cultivated. If this, or 
similar works, were universally read, should we see 
such a want of taste in rural architecture, as we 
witness all over the country ? 
Management of Swine , No. 1.—I expected to 
find in this article, something in accordance with 
the title. For forty years, I have been trying to 
manage these abominable brutes, but have never 
yet been able to accomplish it. “ The number of 
swine in the United States may be fairly estimated 
at twenty millions.” Is it possible that every man, 
woman, and child, in the Union, if they were fairly 
divided would have a hog. Mercy ! What a 
hoggish country ! And does every one eat half a 
hog every year, barring the little that we send abroad? 
For, as a matter of course, we must eat up ten mil¬ 
lions, or the annual increase would soon make us 
more hoggish than we now are. The amount is 
too enormous for belief! The amount of valuation 
I positively will not believe. What! Average 
all the hogs, pigs, old sows, and starved rooters, 
good and bad, at “$3 per head ?” Never. They 
are not worth a third of it. In the parts of the 
country where they are most abundant, pigs, which 
of course, go to make up the enormous number, 
are not worth a dime a piece. In fact, they are not 
counted as of any value at all. Is it possible that 
the writer believes himself, when he says that 
“ from the rapid production and quick maturity of 
swine, they are made to yield a speedy return for 
the investment ?” By “ return” I understand pro¬ 
fit. Now I dispute the whole premises. If 
all the swine that have ever been, now are, and I 
fear, ever will be in the United States, were justly 
charged with all that they should be, the whole 
family would fall so immeasurably in debt that the 
present estimated value of sixty millions would 
not begin to pay it. 
They cost more than that in fences every year , in¬ 
cluding the mischief they do in breaking into en¬ 
closures. 
Here is another item of charge against the family, 
which was related to me, to-day, by an old friend. 
“ In early times,” his father lived in Cherry Valley, 
and like all new settlers, thought he must have a 
“ breeding sow;” and at great trouble and expense 
procured one, which, in due time, had ten stout 
shoats following her. One winter evening, the 
family all went in a sleigh to a neighbor’s, leaving 
the house alone. Of course, as soon as they were 
gone, the old sow and her family began to prowl 
around and rooted the door open—all went in and 
closed the door after them. Then commenced the 
