On the Cost of Horse-jwicer. 447 



cost of spring feeding, which averages nearly IO5. a week, varying 

 from Is. Gd. to 125. 



I find that the average cost per week of keeping a horse 

 throughout the year, according to the cases here described, and 

 putting the summer season down as lasting 18 weeks, the autumn 

 6 weeks, the spring 12 weeks, and the winter 16 weeks, amounts 

 to about Ss. weekly. The annual cost in some of the cases named 

 is, however, brought out more accurately in the following table, 

 where the average annual cost of 35 selected instances comes 

 out as equal to 21/. 15s., being about 85. 4c?. weekly throughout 

 the year. 



Table II. (p. 448) consists of a column giving the number of 

 the statement ; a column naming the person whose management 

 is being described ; columns for the months of the year containing 

 under each month, or part of month, the number of the dietary in 

 Table I. which is being then in use ; and a money column con- 

 taining the sum to which the weekly dietaries specified in the 

 several months amount in each case in the course of the year. 



It is plain that these two tables need to be studied and com- 

 pared rather than merely read ; and the reader must be, for the 

 most part, left to gather in this way the information they convey ; 

 for it would take more pages than can be spared to state in words 

 the facts of these three dozen histories which are here compen- 

 diously expressed in figures. One or two remarks, however, 

 may be allowed. Thus the discrepancy ought to be pointed out 

 which exists between the annual cost of horse- keep as calcu- 

 lated from the detailed statements of one or two authorities, and 

 the cost as calculated from the quantities estimated by the same 

 authorities as being consumed during the year. Professor Low's 

 weekly dietary costs 21/. a-year, while his statement of quantities 

 consumed in the course of the year comes to 28/. 15^. per annum — 

 compare No. 1 with No. 31 : and so with the reports of Mr. Baker 

 of Writtle (12 and 33) and Mr. Mechi of Tiptree (20 and 35). 

 As to the relative values of the differing statements, it will, I 

 think, be safer to accept the calculated results- of the given weekly 

 consumption than, to trust to the estirnated annual quantities 

 consumed. Some of the differences (amounting to 25 or more 

 per cent.) may be owing to different rates of valuation having been 

 adopted in the two cases respectively. 



The main point, however, to which attention will be given 

 in this table is the large difference of annual cost per head 

 incurred under different modes of management in the mainten- 

 ance of the horses of the farm. Mr. Sandford pays 16/. 6s. 

 per head per annum; Mr. Melvin pays 30/. I65., nearly twice as 

 much. One must not too confidently infer from such a difference 

 per head a similar difference in the cost of horse-labour pei' 



