036 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Paet III. 



and bean and peas meal has been advantageously substituted for oats, wliich, if allowed in a considerabla 

 quantity, are injurious to the thriving of the young animal, from their heating and astringent nature. 



5980. During the following summer their pasture depends upon the circumstances of 

 the farms on vi^hich they are reared. In the second winter they are fed in much the 

 same manner as in the first, except that straw may be given for some months instead of 

 hay; and in the third winter, they have a greater allowance of corn, as they are fre- 

 quently worked at the harrows in the ensuing spring. {General Report of Scotland, vol. iii. 

 p. 183.) When about three years old, the author of the New Farmers Calendar 

 advises foals to be fed all winter with a little corn twice a day, or carrots, with hay, oat- 

 straw, &c. allowing a well-littered shed, or warm straw-yard. Colts fed at home with 

 green meat, cut during summer, should have a daily range on a common, or elsewhere, 

 for exercise. Yearlings to be carefully kept separate from the milch mares. 



5981. The time for gelding colts is usually the same in both parts of the kingdom, 

 which is, when they are about a year old ; although, in Yorkshire, this operation is 

 frequently suspended till the spring of the second year, especially when it is intended 

 to keep them on hand, and without employing them in labor till the following 

 season. Pcirkinson disapproves of delaying this operation so long, and recom- 

 mends twitching the colts, a practice well known to the ram-breeders, any time 

 after a week old, or as soon after as the testicles are come down ; and this method, 

 he says, he has followed himself, with great success. {Parldnson on Live Stock, 

 vol. ii. p. 74). Blaine's remarks on the subject of castration appear worthy of notice : 

 he says, when the breed is particularly good, and many considerable expectations are 

 formed on the colt, it is always prudent to wait till twelve months : at this period, if his 

 fore parts are correspondent with his hinder, proceed to castrate; but if he be not suffi- 

 ciently well up before, or his neck be too long and thin, and his shoulders spare, he will 

 assuredly improve by being allowed to remain whole six or eight months longer. 



Another writer suggests for experiment, the spai/ing of mares, thinking they would work 

 better, and have more wind than geldings. ( Marshal's Yorkshire, vol. ii. p. 169.) But 

 he does not appear to have been aware that this is by no means a new experiment : for 

 Tusser, who wrote in 1562, speaks of gelding fllies as a common practice at that period. 

 The main objection to this operation is not that brood mares would become scarce, as he 

 supposes, but that, by incapacitating them from breeding in case of accident, and in old 

 age, tlie loss in this expensive species of live stock would be greatly enhanced. An old 

 or lame mare would then be as worthless as an old or lame gelding is at present. 



5982. The rearing of horses is carried on in some places in so systematical a manner, 

 as to combine the profit arising from the advance in the age of the animals, with that of 

 a moderate degree of labor, before they are fit for the purposes to which tliey are ulti- 

 mately destined. In the ordinary practice of the midland counties, the breeders sell 

 them while yearlings, or perhaps when foals, namely, at six or eighteen months old, but 

 most generally the latter. They are mostly bought up by the graziers of Leicestershire, 

 and the other grazing parts of that district, where they are groivn among the grazing 

 Stock until the autumn following. At two years and a half old, they are bought up by 

 the arable farmers, or dealers of Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, and other 

 western counties, when they are broken into harness, and worked till they are 

 five, or more generally, six years old. At this age the dealers buy them up again to 

 be sent to London, where they are finally purchased for drays, carts, waggons, coaches, 

 the army, or any other purpose for which they are found tit. {Marshal's Economy of 

 the Midland Counties, vol. i. p. 311.) 



5983. In the west of Scotland, a similar mode of transferring horses from hand to hand, 

 is common. The farmers of Ayrshire, and the counties adjacent, who generally grow corn 

 on not more than one-fourth, or at the most, one-third of their arable land, and occupy 

 the remainder with a dairy stock, purchase young horses at the fair of Lanark and Carn- 

 wath, before mentioned ; work them at the harrows in the following spring when below 

 two years old ; put them to the plough rtext winter, at the age of two and a 

 half, and continue to work them gently till they are five years old, when they are 

 sold again at the Rutherglen and Glasgow markets at a great advance of price, to dealers 

 and farmers from the south-eastern counties. A considerable number of horses, how- 

 ever, are now bred in the Lothians, Berwickshire, and Roxburghshire, the very high 

 prices of late having rendered it profitable to them, even upon good arable ground ; but 

 many farmers of these counties, instead of breeding, still prefer purchasing two and a 

 half or three and a half year old colts, at the markets in the west country, or at New- 

 castle fair, in October ; they buy in a certain number yearly, and sell an equal 

 number of their work horses before they are so old as to lose much of their value, so 

 that their stock is kept up without any other loss than such as arises from accidents ; and 

 the greater price received for the horses they sell, is often suflficient to cover any such 

 loss. {General Report of Scotland, \o\. iii. p. 182.) 



