COMPARATIVE EXPENSE 247 



is all the physic my horses have had since the last 

 hunting season, nor do I expect they will require any 

 more till after Christmas ; but they have partaken 

 freely of alterative medicine, some of them, whose 

 nature is gross, having had one alterative ball every 

 week. 



Now, then, let us make a Uttle calculation as to the 

 expense of summering these horses in the way I have 

 been describing, and compare it with what they 

 would have cost at grass. We will call the period 

 nine weeks for the sake of avoiding fractions. When 

 in work, six horses in my stable ate exactly three 

 hundredweight of hay per week ; but in these large, 

 loose places, allowing for waste and better appetites, 

 we will give them nearly double the quantity, and say 

 six horses shall eat five hundredweight per week. 



Two tons five cwt. of hay, at ;^4 per ton . 

 Seventy-one bushels of oats, at 4s. per bushel 

 Beans ..... 



Six horses at grass nine weeks, at 4s. per week 



Difference . . . . . ;^i3 18 



Thus it appears that the difference in the expense 

 of six horses summered in the house, and six horses 



here used excessive ? I answered his letter by assuring him that I 

 had always found the best effects from it. It corrects the acrimony 

 of the blood, promotes the secretion, and I might almost say ensures 

 future condition. As a proof of this, it is in some shape or other the 

 leading article in all alterative medicines for man or horse. A 

 clergyman in Devonshire wrote to me some time since, referring me 

 to an article in the EncyclopcBdia Britannica, containing a curious 

 account of a highly-beneficial experiment on feeding pigs by the 

 help of this drug. 



