450 On the Coat of Horse-power. 



acre. The less expensive method is not necessarily the 

 cheaper of the two, as these very farms sufficiently illustrate. 

 In Mr. Sandford's case 12 horses are used (consuming, therefore, 

 195/. 12s. worth of food, or 16s. 3d. per acre) in cultivating 240 

 acres of " a marl on a chalk subsoil, from 6 to 7 inches deep." 

 That it is well done may be inferred from the good crops grown 

 last year, reaching 44 bushels of wheat over 60 acres, and 50 

 bushels of barley over a similar extent. In Mr. Melvin's case 

 20 horses are employed (consuming, therefore, 616/. worth of 

 food per annum, or about 18^. Ad. per acre) in cultivating 675 

 imperial acres, " part of it 8 to 11 inches deep, the rest say 7 or 8 — 

 the lea furrow being 6 inches deep." But the difference between 

 301. 16s. and 16/. Qs. (90 per cent.) does not merely dwindle 

 down to one between 18*. 4d. and 16^. 3d. per acre (7 per cent.) ; 

 it becomes a difference upon the other side when considered 

 in connection with the quantity and laboriousness of the fallow 

 crops in the two cases respectively. But this Avill more plainly 

 appear in the columns of Table III., where the other items going 

 to swell the cost of horse-labour — namely, wages of team-men, 

 farrier's and tradesmen's bills, annual cost of keeping up imple- 

 ments and animals — are enumerated, and where the number of 

 horses kept and the extent of the different crops cultivated by 

 them is given for comparison. My reference now to the two 

 extreme cases in Table II. is merely to guard against the idea 

 that the cheapest management of horses necessarily implies the 

 cheapest production of horse-power. 



It is no part of my purpose in this paper to justify or condemn 

 any of the methods of horse management here described, still less 

 to recommend any other method not referred to here ; my object 

 simply is to describe existing practice, and ascertain in a number 

 of instances the cost of horse-labour per acre or of horse-power 

 per cwt. Yet I may allude to some of the instances given in 

 Table II. as agreeing remarkably in their cost per annum, all of them 

 being adopted by excellent practical farmers, and illustrating what 

 seems to me ari economical and yet efficient style of management. 

 I refer to Nos. 13, 16, and 17, by Messrs. ,C()leman, Cobban, and 

 Druce, where the annual cost of a horse is little more than 18/., 

 or Is. a-day, each pair working 14 to 16 acres of fallow crops 

 annually. 



Let us now turn to Table III. (p. 451). The first column 

 gives the number in Table II. of each of the cases, 21 in number, 

 selected from the reports I have received. A reference to these 

 numbers will at once identify the names of those on whose autho- 

 rity the particulars are given. We have next (2) the annual cost 

 of food per horse taken from Table II. ; (3) the estimated or the 

 actual amount, given under the head of extras, of blacksmith's, 



