FEEDING TWICE A PAY. 189 



There is another point in connection with this matter to which 

 I will refer for a moment. I think that animals, as well as 

 men, are fed too often. That is, we eat too many times a day. 

 There are exceptional cases ; you cannot lay down a universal 

 rule. A man who gets up at four o'clock in the morning and 

 goes to work, of course needs three meals, because he has a long 

 day ; but take an ordinary Christian, who gets up in the morn- 

 ing at a decent hour, does his work faithfully, and goes to bed 

 at the proper time, he will get along very comfortably with two 

 meals a day ; if he does not work any harder than a great many 

 of the farmers in this State, he will do very well with two 

 meals a day. The man who gets his breakfast at eight o'clock, 

 and has a good digestion, if he will take his second meal at 

 two or three o'clock, and not eat anything after that, and go to 

 bed at a reasonable hour, will be a better man, will have a bet- 

 ter temper, and his family will be happier, than if he eats three 

 meals a day. It is the third meal that does the business, but 

 we cannot get along without it, we think, in Yankee land. 



In the old country, where they live upon solid food, and do not 

 poison themselves with coffee and pastry, and rarely taste of 

 sweet things, they have sweet tempers. But you know, that if 

 you go among country people, they are so hospitable that they 

 will give you for supper hot biscuit, half a dozen kinds of cake, 

 a great many kinds of sweetmeats, some tongue, a little cold 

 pork, and very strong tea and coffee. No man can go to bed 

 on a supper like that, and wake up the next morning feeling 

 comfortable and at peace with himself and all the rest of man- 

 kind. That is the sort of philosophy we ought to practise 

 towards our animals. Up in Worcester County, where they are 

 devoted to three meals a day, there are a. great many farmers 

 who feed their animals four or five times a day ; but I found in 

 some of the dairy sections of New York, where they have as 

 good farmers as there are in Worcester County or anywhere 

 else, they were in the habit of feeding their cows but twice a 

 day. It looked to me at the time as rather preposterous, but I 

 tried it all last winter upon my horses, and for two winters 

 past I have tried it upon my cows, and I have not seen but 

 that they got along just as comfortably, and they have eaten 

 up their hay and meal cleaner, and have not eaten quite as 

 much as when I fed them three meals a day. 



