Jg2 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



opinions. Applying that rule I find this gentleman to be exceed- 

 ingly sound in all matters. Being much interested in the subject 

 matter of his discourse, I want to say a word or two by. way of 

 illustration in relation to one point which he made. But before 

 doing so, allow me to make a little contribution to the subject 

 which has been just discussed. I have found great difference of 

 opinion with i-egard to feeding, and the amount of food necessary 

 for keeping animals, and I resolved to go to headquarters. I 

 spent considerable time in the city of New York visiting the horse 

 railroad stables in that city and in Brooklyn, and the omnibus horse 

 stables, in order to learn their experience. I found those in 

 charge very courteous ; they opened their books and gave me 

 every information desired. To sum up "the results, looking over 

 the record of their experience for several years, I found that they 

 had all settled down, each company for itself, as the result of 

 careful and repeated experiments, the details of which I was priv- 

 ileged to observe, upon one uniform rule for horse-railroad horses, 

 and that was, twelve pounds of hay and sixteen pounds of Indian 

 meal per day. In that way a railroad horse was kept up to his 

 highest condition, and they were enabled to do their work more 

 satisfactoril}' than under any other system that had been tried. 

 Oats had been repeatedly used as an article of food, and their cost 

 was carefully compared with that of Indian meal. It was feared 

 at one time, that during the hot weather, the feeding of this 

 amount of Indian meal would be found injurious, but the result of 

 their experience was, that Indian meal, on the whole, for a railroad 

 or omnibus horse was the true thing. But they have one very 

 curious practice, the reason of which I am unable to fathom, which 

 I ought to state in connection with this, as possibly bearing upon 

 the subject under discussion. They invariably water all their 

 horses at one o'clock at night. They have an idea, how true it is 

 I do not know, that watering their horses at night adds greatly to 

 their power of digesting the food, and prevents injurious conse- 

 quences. And yet there is one respect in which an omnibus horse 

 might perhaps furnish an insufficient guide to farmers. I found 

 on comparison of the railroad horses with the omnibus horses of 

 New York, that while the railroad horses on the average lasted 

 four years, an omnibus horse lasted eight years, or just double. 

 For example, the Third Avenue Railroad Company, which has 

 1,200 horses in their stables, purchases 300 horses every year. 

 It is their regular rule to turn off 300 horses every year which are 



