MR. COLMAN S ADDRESS. 13 



sumed on the farm is worth three dollars more than if sold from 

 the place ; i. e. if it bring only ten dollars in the market and 

 by any mode of consuming it upon his place the farmer can 

 reali2;e that amount from it at home, he may consider it as better 

 worth thirteen dollars on the farm than ten dollars carried from 

 the place ; or to state the case difterently, it is better for the 

 farmer to use it at home if he can there make it worth seven 

 dollars per ton to him than to convey it any considerable 

 distance to market and obtain ten for it. At this rate, however, 

 and I can see no fallacy in the calculation, hay at present prices 

 and yielding one or one and a half ton to the acre is not a profit- 

 able crop. Indeed, unless where there are extraordinary 

 resources for obtaining manure, such as on the sea shore or 

 in the vicinity of bog mud, the sale of hay must be considered 

 as a wasteful kind of husbandry. It is properly speaking, in 

 many cases, killing the hen that lays the golden egg. 



Next let us compare the value of hay with other crops for 

 the feeding of stock. An acre of hay yields one ton and a hall' 

 of vegetable food ; an acre of carrots or Swedish turnips will 

 yield from ten to twenty tons ; say fifteen tons, which is by no 

 means an exaggerated estimate. Crops at the rate of twenty- 

 five tons of carrots, and twenty-two of Swedish turnips to the 

 acre have been raised among us, and much larger crops than 

 these are upon record. 



By an experiment it has been ascertained that three working 

 horses fifteen and a half hands high consumed at the rate of 

 two hundred and twenty four pounds of hay per week, or five 

 tons one thousand five hundred and forty eight pounds of hay 

 per year, besides twelve gallons of oats each per week or seventy 

 eight bushels by the year. An unworked horse consumed at 

 the rate of four and one quarter tons of hay by the year. 

 The produce therefore of nearly six acres of land in this mode 

 of feeding is necessary to support a working horse by the 

 year ; but half an acre of carrots at six hundred bushels to the 

 acre with the addition of chopped straw will, while the season 

 for their use lasts, do it as well if not better. These things do 

 Jiot admit of doubt ; they have been subjects of accurate tiial. 



