185 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
153 
they are found to thrive and fatten decidedly faster 
when strict cleanliness is preserved. Even the practice 
of daily currying hogs has been found by actual ex¬ 
periment to accelerate their fattening, the food remain¬ 
ing the same. 
To assist the preservation of cleanliness in every 
part of the building here described, it is well lighted 
with windows. They should be made to slide, so as to 
be opened for ventilation in mild weather. For an 
additional safeguard, and for excluding an excess of 
light at any time, they may be furnished with board 
shutters sliding horizontally inside. In addition to 
cleaning the pens twice a day, it will be necessary to 
keep the floor sprinkled with straw, well dried peat or 
turf, or other similar material to absorb the watery 
portions of the manure. The contents should not be 
thrown out of a window or* doer, forming an unsightly 
pile near the building, but wheeled off with a wheel¬ 
barrow to a proper distance ; and as this manure is of 
a very fertilizing character, and therefore especially 
worthy of preservation, it should be deposited so as to 
form a neat compost heap, to which' additional layers 
of turf should be successively added, unless the bed-, 
ding of the animals supplies all the needed absorbents. 
The cost of such a building as this, framed of strong 
timber, covered with inch and-a-half vertical plank 
and battened and whitewashed with two coats of lime, 
will vary from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
dollars, if of the size already mentioned, that is twen¬ 
ty by twenty-five feet. For large establishments, lar¬ 
ger dimensions and a greater number of subdivisions 
of the apartments may be necessary, the general ar¬ 
rangement remaining the same. It may in such a 
case be most economical to dig a cellar beneath, to be 
occupied with a steam-boiler, from which the steam 
may pass up through a pipe into a tight plank box 
above, containing the food to be steamed, and from 
which, when cooked, it may be shovelled at once into 
the feeding troughs. Several experimental farmers 
have successfully adopted the practice of steaming 
their corn unground, and even in the ear, a process 
which, however, requires several hours for its comple- 
. tion, but which saves toll and carrying to mill, but we 
are not informed that any accurate experiments have 
been instituted to show the precise amount of saving 
effected by this process. 
Profitable Sheep. —Mr. J. Hurlbutt, Gale’s Fer¬ 
ry, Conn., informs us that in the fall of 1852, he had 
a flock of twenty-one sheep, of what are called native 
breed, which he kept on his meadows through the win¬ 
ter, only feeding them with hay when there was snow 
on the ground. Through the month of April, they 
were fed four quarts of oats per day, and then turned 
on an old pasture, where they were kept through the 
summer. They produced eighty three pounds of wool 
which Was sold at fifty cents per lb. making $41,50, 
and raised twenty-four lambs which averaged $2 each, 
making an average income of $4,25 per head. Mr. H. 
adds—“T would just say that I never allow butchers 
to pick out the best lambs or the fattest sheep.” 
The Carnation, the Picotee and Pink. 
The flowers we have selected for this paper, may be 
called universal favorites. Who is there who has not 
admired in their day some member of this sweet-scented 
family! Perhaps the pet of a mother or sister at the 
old homestead, helping by its cheerfulness, or delight¬ 
ful fragrance of a balmy summer’s evening, to soothe 
the cares and toils of every-day life. 
Fig. 2. 
Few flowers can boast of more ardent admirers in 
the mother country, and even in this they have had 
their share of votaries. To grow them really fine, re 
Fig. 3. 
quires a light sandy loam; but any garden soil, provi¬ 
ded it is not stiff and wet, will grow them for the pur 
pose we are here speaking of, the flower garden. 
The Carnation —Dianthus caryophyllus ■—is divi- 
