36 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



a clay farm will require more horse-power than a 

 light loam ; while on the latter young carriage- 

 horses may be broken in, doing good work at the 

 same time. To half-bred horses on a loam I should 

 always incline : they are so much handier and 

 faster; for a clay, sticking as pitch to the plough, 

 you must have weight thrown into the collar. 



It is ruination to keep your horses in such high 

 condition, you will often hear it remarked ; whereas, 

 it is the worst policy in the world to allow them to 

 get too low in flesh. Not only will it cost you 

 double the money and trouble to bring them up 

 again that it would have done to keep them so 

 (an animal in good condition costs comparatively 

 little to keep on so, whereas five pounds are soon 

 gone in getting flesh upon lean ribs again), but 

 a farmer ought to have his horses always saleable, 

 should opportunity of selling occur — as occur it will, 

 he knows not how soon, if they be good, and have a 

 character as such. As that eminent agriculturist, 

 the late Mr. Pusey, wrote, " By the improved system 

 the farmer is taught to keep his animals in a 

 thriving state steadily from their birth." (Keep 

 their * calf-flesh " on, that is.) " Even horses, though 

 not meant to be eaten, should not be stinted of food. 

 Railway contractors hardly measure their horses' 

 oats, and two well-fed horses can do as much work, 

 or more, for the same provender which, in the old 

 system, enabled three horses barely to crawl." They 

 should be housed in a comfortable well-ventilated 

 stable : blindness and glanders are the certain con- 

 sequence of the too-usual, crowded, stuffed-up, foul- 



