1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



591 



up on green clover pretty much in the same way; 

 and were I permitted to offer advice to you or your 

 readers, it would be, to save one-half of your corn 

 by a course of management somewhat like this. 

 Now this is saying a good deal for clover. Can as 

 much lie said for any other grass? Can as much 

 be said for herds grass? — against which, except as 

 a meadow grass, I have declared war ever since 

 1825. 



It has been said, "the master's eye is half feed." 

 I have never felt the truth of the remark so forcibly 

 illustrated, as in the facts above m mtioned. Instead 

 of telling the ostler to feed well and curry well, my 

 plan wasto rise rather earlier, and walk to the stable, 

 where every thing like neglig :nce and inattention 

 might at once be corrected. At 12 o'clock, instead 

 of lulling on the bed, or taking a scat at the chim- 

 ney corner with a pipe in my mouth, the same 

 thing was repeated. Thus, by attention and reg- 

 ularity, we all had bread enough, and our horses 

 are in good condition. There is another thing 

 about our teams, too much neglected, which merits 

 severe reproof, and is as shameful and scanda- 

 lous a practice as it is barbarous and ruinous — I 

 mean gearing the horse. How often do we see 

 horses, belonging to the wealth}- — aye ! humane 

 farmer, not only rubbed until it becomes a difficult 

 task to say whether they have been in the hands 

 of some unskilful barber, or forced through a 

 brush lire — but with shoulders and backs as raw as 

 a piece of fashionable beef-steak. What else, 

 Mr. Editor, <jan we expect — for if you will exam- 

 ine the collars, perhaps half has been eaten up 

 by the more than hall-starved cattle — the balance 

 carefully wrapt around the poor animal's neck. 

 Instead of a good substantial hamestring, made 

 of leather, you will find nothing but an old twisted 

 hickory-switch; with the but end probing a sore of 

 some months' standing. Look, sir, at the traces. 

 Link after link has given way, until you can hard- 

 ly say which of the two is most in need — the 

 carpenter or blacksmith. And as ibr back-bands 

 or belly-bands, the poor animal is corded up with 

 grape-vines or elm-bark, until he can scarcely 

 draw a comfortable breath. These things are 

 facts — whether they are worth the trouble of re- 

 cording in the Register remains lor you to decide. 

 And there are many other facts which might be 

 mentioned like those already stated, but 1 must 

 forbear, least a complaint be heard from some of 

 your readers. So I will conclude, with the addi- 

 tion of one more — though last, not least worthy to 

 be noticed — that is, if you are scarce of horse pro- 

 vender, feed with a sparing hand in the fall and 

 winter. As spring comes on, deal out more liber- 

 ally — for during the sound healthy weather of fall, 

 as well as the cold short days of winter, a horse will 

 endure more (atigue, with less food, than he can 

 possibly sustain in the relaxing months of spring, 

 or still more parching sun of a summer's day. 

 There are farmers about here who have the repu- 

 tation of being good managers, whose horses are 

 always fat and sleek in the fall — but rough and 

 bony in the summer; this should not be, and like 

 some of my friend's proverbs, makes another 

 "great evil under the sun." 



\v. 



[It is to be regretted that our correspondent should 

 have deprived his statement of very important facts 

 of half their value, by withholding his name — for this 



is the certain consequence of the use of a fictitious 

 signature to all readers who have not the advantage, 

 (which we possess, in this case,) of knowing the high 

 respectability of the source whence the information 

 proceeds. But in this respect, we must be governed 

 by the will of the correspondent. 



The minute statement given above, shows more 

 fully than we had supposed — though long satisfied ot 

 the general fact — that we feed horses generally at much 

 more expense than is necessary to preserve their health, 

 flesh, and strength. But this fact, however valuable, 

 and however well established, can only be made proper 

 use of by a farmer who attends as closely to the feed- 

 ing, as our correspondent, (or who has the rare good 

 fortune to have an overseer who will pay the same at- 

 tention to his interest — ) and who also has a largesh are 

 of that horse-knowledge, which seems to be a natural 

 qualify, and no more to be acquired, than a talent for 

 painting or poetry. The phrenologists have placed 

 no such organ as this in their list — but if there was 

 any truth in their system, they would doubtless have 

 discovered on many human sculls, and especially in 

 Virginia, a bump showing the love for, and knowledge 

 of horses. Of such an organ, however, we must con- 

 fess our entire destitution, as well as of the system of 

 good management which might compensate for its 

 absence — and consequently, like the greater part of our 

 fellow farmers in Virginia, our stable mis-management 

 has been not very unlike such as our correspondent 

 describes in the latter part of his letter. Though long 

 sensible of the waste and impropriety of heavy feed- 

 ing, we had no other safeguard against still greater inju- 

 ry to horses and mules, if their food was ordered to be 

 reduced below what they would consume and destroy. 

 If W. was our neighbor, we should have suspected 

 him of designing to include our farm in his general de- 

 scription. This egotism may be excused, because our 

 errors and losses in this respect, are the same with 

 thousands of others, who are compelled to manage 

 through ignorant or unfaithful agents. Though amply 

 provided with clover, and desirous to use it as green 

 food, we have never been able to do so to any conside- 

 rable extent for working teams. Though cut a day 

 before being used, the overseers would declare that the 

 horses would "give out," upon even a part of their 

 abundant food being green — and as they can always as- 

 sure the fulfilment of their prediction, the proprietor 

 must yield. When there is no scarcity of corn, our 

 horses are generally both over-fed and over-worked: 

 and the consequences are, that the excess of food serves 

 to impair the health and strength of the animal, and 

 the 12 or 14 hours work in a long summer's day, 

 amounts to less than 10 hours would give, with rest 

 the balance of the time.] 



THE RIGHT OF 



C03I3IOIV AS 

 BY LAAV. 



ESTABLISHED 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Fairfax County, Jan. 8th, 1S?6. 



Since the General Assembly determined that it 

 was not good or right to protect real estate and 

 £>ive it the same inviolable character that all other 



