220 THE PRINCIPLES OF 



that of course included the share of the ploughman's wages 

 which goes with each horse. 



I take then 30 as being a covering estimate of the cost 

 of maintaining a farm-horse. Next we ask this question 

 How many working-days are there in the year ? A great 

 deal depends upon that. We must take out Sundays, and 

 the two or three holidays the poor labourers enjoy, which 

 are very few; they get Christmas Day and Good Friday 

 I am not sure all get that and they get perhaps a 

 club-day, but they have very few holidays. Sundays come 

 out, then half and quarter days during which work is inter- 

 rupted by wet, to set against which there are some long late 

 days in hay-time and harvest. The most serious loss results 

 from the fact that during frost and snow, and during continued 

 wet weather, the horse is compulsorily idle, and that for 

 quarter and half days as well as whole days. 



If we take out fifty-two Sundays and, say, four holi- 

 days, and for broken days say ten, that leaves us 299 or 

 300 days, a figure which simplifies the matter very much if 

 we may consider it as correct. I submit this estimate to 

 your own judgment, as you may modify the calculation if you 

 think that it is not according to experience. Starting with 

 300 days in every year, I am afraid we shall bring the cost 

 per day down to a rather low figure. 30 equals 600s., and 

 300 days x 2 = 600; so that our result comes out 2s. a day: 

 I believe that to be reasonable that it costs the farmer 

 about 2s. a day to keep his horses. It is not many ordinary 

 farmers that give their horses such feeding as that proposed 

 for our horses. How many give them no corn at all in 

 summer? And in the winter they have to put up with 

 straw, two bushels of oats, and a quarter bushel of beans. 

 So that I think we are beyond the cost rather than within 

 when we say 2s. a day. When I was a student under the late 

 Professor Goleman he fixed the price for our purpose as 



