1874] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
175 
several letters here that I want you to help me 
to answer. Here is one from Champaign, Ill., 
from a gentleman who wants to know how 
many pigs he can keep on an acre of clover.” 
“If the pigs have nothing but clover,” said 
the Deacon, “ they will eat nearly as much as 
one of your big Cotswold sheep. They keep 
eating all the time. But a good deal depends 
on the breed. And I will say one thing in 
favor of your black pigs. They are the best 
graziers I ever saw.” 
That is simply because they are so quiet 
and have little offal. Restlessness and offal, 
like weeds in a corn field, run away with half 
the food and all the profits. There are pigs 
that weigh no more in the fall after a summer’s 
grazing than they did in the spring. The great 
advantage of having well-bred pigs is shown 
in the pasture lot more than in the pig-pen. I 
am not sure that a coarse, common, ill-bred hog 
that has nearly got his growth will not gain as 
fast after he is shut up to fatten as a well bred 
Essex or Berkshire. But turn a couple of such 
pigs at say six months old into a good clover 
or pasture lot, and the well-bred pig will not 
only increase the more in weight, but this in¬ 
crease will consist in a good degree of good 
solid flesh and fat, while the increase of the 
other will be principally in bone, water, 
and offal. 
A pig will eat more in proportion to live 
weight than any other domestic animal. Bous- 
singault states that a pig from six to eight 
months old will eat green clover equal to over 
five pounds of hay per day. We shall not be 
far wrong in assuming that young clover con¬ 
tains 80 per cent of water, so that a pig would 
eat 25 lbs. of green clover per day—20 lbs. of 
which consists of water. If we assume that 
the pasture will produce in the season clover 
and grass equal to 2\ tons of hay, an acre would 
support five pigs for six months. 
The Deacon thinks they would not eat so 
much clover if they were allowed one or two 
pounds of corn each per day. I think they 
would eat nearly or quite as much. In one of 
Mr. Lawes’s experiments he gave one pen of 
pigs 28 lbs. of grain per head per week and all 
the bran they would eat; and to another pen 
only 19£ lbs. of grain and all the bran they 
would eat. But the pigs having the smaller 
allowance of grain ate no more bran than the 
other. Both pens ate 18 lbs. of bran each pig 
per week. And so I think it would be with 
the clover. The pigs will eat about all the 
clover they can get into their stomachs, say 25 
lbs. per day. But I think they would manage 
to squeeze in an extra pint of corn night and 
morning. 
“ But what is the good ? ” asked the Deacon. 
Let Mr. Lawes’s experiment alluded to above 
answer. The pen that had 18 lbs. of bran (all 
they would eat) and 19J lbs. of grain gained 
416 lbs. per week; while the pen that had 18 
lbs. of bran and 28 lbs. of grain gained 7.42 lbs. 
per week. In other words, 8f lbs. of extra 
grain per week produced 3J lbs. of pork. 
The next letter is from a well-known agri¬ 
cultural writer in Ohio. He wants to know 
what is the best work on agricultural chemistry. 
I told him to get Prof. S. W. Johnson’s works, 
“ How Crops Grow ” and “ How Crops Feed.” 
“ I have not time to go at all deeply into the 
subject,” he writes, “ but I am convinced that 
there must be more science and more brains in¬ 
fused into our agriculture before there can be 
much improvement or even a check to the 
downward progress of our crops and the fer¬ 
tility of our soils.” 
I have not much fear of a “ downward pro¬ 
gress.” I do not think our soils are being ex¬ 
hausted. I know my farm will produce a great 
deal more now than it would 25 years ago. Take 
the field where I am now sowing 14 acres of 
mangels. Twenty-three years ago it was in 
wheat. My father, who was a good English 
farmer, walked over the field with me, and ex¬ 
claimed, “I never saw such a wretched crop ; 
but it looks like good land.” Last year I had 
a grand crop of corn on this same field. And 
yet about all I have done to it is to get out 
some of the stones, plow it better, cultivate 
thoroughly, and kill the weeds. I have plowed 
under no clover, have not put fifty loads of 
manure all told on the whole field until this 
spring. Now I am putting on eight or ten 
tons of manure per acre, and expect, with a 
favorable season, a fair crop of mangels. 
“ J. S. D.,” of Bartholomew Co., Ind., asks 
“if Diehl wheat is an early or late variety? 
smooth or bearded ? has it stiff straw, and is it 
suitable for the rich bottom lands of Indiana? 
Is it liable to be struck by rust or attacked by 
the fly ? Is it a hardy winter wheat ? ” 
It is early, not bearded, very stiff straw. 
With me it lias escaped the midge and rust. 
Last year it was badly killed by the winter, 
but not more so than other varieties of white 
wheat. Mediterranean and other red wheats 
suffered less; so much so that many of our 
farmers did not sow white wheat last fall, but 
have gone back to the Mediterranean. The 
truth of the matter is just this. If your land 
is not dry enough or rich enough to produce 
twenty bushels of Mediterranean wheat per 
acre in a favorable season, it is useless to sow 
Diehl or any other choice white variety. But 
if your land is too rich for Mediterranean, and 
is dry and othewise in good order, try the 
Diehl. You will be likely to get a larger yield 
per acre and a higher price per bushel. 
A farmer in Ohio writes : “ I have just sold 
twenty-nine black-walnut trees to a man in 
New York for $600. My neighbors think it 
will hurt the sale of my farm. I look at it in 
a different light. That six hundred dollars 
will enable me to add many conveniences and 
some necessities. Such timber is too expen¬ 
sive to split into rails. Fully two thirds of the 
rails on the farm are black-walnut.” 
When a man does not wish to sell, what is 
the use of this constant talk about this or that 
thing helping or hindering the sale of the 
farm ? If the black-walnut trees have got their 
growth, sell them and spend the money in 
making such improvements as will add to your 
own comfort and to the real value of the far’... 
To split up black-walnut trees into rai*s is 
about as sensible as it is to feed out clover seed 
to sheep or to plow it under for manure. 
This same correspondent says he has “ half 
an acre of mallows, or what the boys call 
cheeses. I cut it up six times last summer, and 
in the fall had a splendid crop. Will salt 
kill it ? ” 
I think not. It is a wretched weed. I have 
been fighting it for years. It does not seem to 
fear the hoe. It must be pulled up by the root 
—which is easier said than done. During last 
winter we had such mild weather that the land 
could be plowed, and I struck the plow into a 
patch of land full of this weed and turned up 
the roots. All I can say at present is that they 
do not: eem to like this treatment. 
The next letter is from a farmer in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, who asks if it is better to fatten grade 
Cotswold lambs the first winter, or summer 
them over. 
It depends on circumstances. Unless they 
are remarkably good lambs, and with more 
than one cross of Cotswold blood in them, I 
am inclined to think it will be better to keep 
them over. You get the wool, and it is not 
necessary to feed so much grain. They will 
make capital sheep the next winter or spring. 
When lambs are to be fattened the first winter 
it is necessary to have them come early, and to 
push them along rapidly through the summer 
and autumn; they ought to have some roots 
in winter. 
“ Is the Thomas harrow,” asks “S. R. E.,” 
“ as good as claimed in corn working ? ” 
It certainly kills a great many seedling weeds, 
and, so far as my experience goes, it does not 
pull up the corn to any serious extent. If the 
land is Tery hard it will not do much good, 
and if it is very light and rough it will smother 
some of the plants. Still, I think it a very use¬ 
ful implement, and one I should not like to 
dispense with. The only trouble I have had 
with it is with the couplings breaking or com¬ 
ing loose, and sometimes the harrows ride each 
other. I think the harrow might be improved 
in this respect. I ought to say that I have had 
my harrow some years, and it is very likely 
that this trouble has since been remedied. 
A Butter Factory 
The factory system which has been so suc¬ 
cessful in the manufacture of cheese is equally 
adapted to the manufacture of butter. The 
creameries, as the butter factories are called, 
have made an excellent reputation in the 
butter markets, and “creamery pails” bring 
the highest current rates. Concentrated effort 
and capital are brought to bear in producing 
butter with the most complete economy and of 
the greatest possible excellence. The appli¬ 
ances necessary are in no way different from 
those belonging to any private dairy, except in, 
capacity. The building needed is only an en¬ 
larged dairy house, and the principles upon 
which it is constructed are those upon which 
any dairy depends for its success. Still, as ex¬ 
perience has been gained, there is found to be 
a style of building which is best suited for the 
purpose, and internal arrangements which are 
the most economical and convenient. Such a 
building is shown in the engravings. Fig. 2 gives 
the elevation of a successful factory in central 
New York. The building is 60 feet long, 30 feet 
wide, and 18 feet to the eaves. The basement 
or cellar is only partly below the surface of 
the ground, and is built of stone with hollow 
walls; the floor is paved with flagstone laid in 
cement. This secures a perfectly dry, cool, 
sweet cellar, with an equable temperature 
throughout the year. The building above the 
basement is of frame, boarded outside and 
lathed and plastered within. There is a cov¬ 
ered drive-way at one end for delivering the 
milk, and a covered porch in the front with 
steps leading to the front door, and below the 
porch is the basement door. The floor of the 
factory consists of a milk-room 30 x 36, a work¬ 
room 22 x 14, a churning-room 8 x 14, with an 
engine-room attached. The plan is shown at 
