On the Cost of Horse-jpower, 441 



weight consumed per week of hay, oats, beans, roots, clover, and 

 straw by a horse, and the calculated weekly cost of so maintaining 

 it. This cost is calculated at the rates of 3^. a cwt, for hay, 3.s\ 

 a bushel for oats, 5^. a bushel for beans, 4o?. a cwt. for turnips 

 or mangold- wurze], Qd. a cwt. for carrots and clover, and without 

 charge for straw. I do not attempt any justification of the prices 

 here adopted. They will suffice as well as any others to illus- 

 trate the mode of calculation adopted ; and no figures could be sub- 

 stituted for them to which exception might not somewhere be justly 

 taken.* The prices adopted in calculating the cost of food are, it 

 will be found, the ordinary market prices of the grain consumed ; 

 and, in the cases of the liaij and green food, the value which it is 

 supposed they might produce if given to other kinds of live stock 

 >on the farm. Where an asterisk (*) is attached to any item it 

 is to be understood that the corn has been bruised or ground, oi" 

 the hay or straw has been cut into chaff: where a dagger (f) is 

 appended the article so marked has been boiled or steamed : a 

 mark of interrogation (?) indicates that the result so marked is 

 uncertain owing to some indefiniteness in the account given. 

 The cost of stable management, apart from that merely of the 

 food, does not appear in this table ; it will appear in Table III. 

 under the head of Wages paid to Team-men. 



There are no fewer than 115 cases named in Table I. (p. 442). 

 If any of the methods of feeding here described should seem whim- 

 sical — any of their differences merely fanciful — the excuse which 

 must be taken for their appearance is, that not one of them is 

 imaginary, not one of them is a mere scheme or proposal — 

 every one is actually adopted and in use on farms, many of 

 them in whole districts, in this country. 



The differences of cost in the weekly food, according to the 

 modes of feeding specified in Table I., are very consider- 

 able ; more than 100 per cent, in the cost of summer feeding, 

 which averages 8^. a week and varies from 5^. to \ls. ; 70 or 

 SO per cent, in the cases given of autumn feeding, which costs on 

 the average about 9s. 6tZ., and varies from Is. 6f/. to 12s. ; more 

 than 100 per cent, in the cost of winter feeding, which averages 

 about 6^'. 4a'., varying from 4^. ^d. to 12^. ; and 30 per cent, in the 



* It must be nndevstood that the cost of weekly keep, which, in upwards of one 

 hundred cases, is given in Table I., can be taken only for an approximation to the 

 truth. It is difficult to state correctly the actual expense of food grown upon the 

 farm; and there are several instances of apparent discrepancy, or seeming error, in 

 calculation, of which the explanation or justification which I should oiFer might 

 not by every one be considered satisfactory. Some of these it will be found are 

 owing to Qd. per cwt. being charged for clover cut and carried to the yard ; while 

 ^s. a-week is charged for the keep of a horse wholly at grass in the field ; and 2s. 

 per week is charged for grass, in addition to other food, when the horse is turned 

 out to the field alter work. 



VOL. XIX. 2 G 



