ON CUTTING AND PKEPAKING FKED. 65 



from Pittsburgh across the Alleghany niountains. I have often 

 admired them as much as Mr Parkinson ; their large stature ; 

 their fine athletic frames ; their healthy condition ; and have 

 equally admired the economical mode of feeding them. 



The next authority I quote is that of Richard Peters, Esq., 

 of Philadelphia, a name always to be in the highest measure 

 revered by the friends of an improved agriculture. A more 

 enlightened, active, disinterested, devoted friend to the cause, 

 has never appeared among us. In a letter dated April 8, 1817, 

 he says, " I find a wonderful saving of provender by chaffing it. 

 I account for the utility of chaffing, by its exposing more points 

 for the extraction of nutriment, to the maceration of the liquids 

 in, and the action of the stomach, or stomachs, of animals. And 

 no provender is wasted, as it is by feeding it entire, either by 

 negligence in servants, or uselessly passing through the viscera. 

 I have strong hopes that the practice of chaffing will be a great 

 relief in this season of comparative scarcity. We are so nmcli 

 accustomed to abundance, that we have never studied or prac- 

 tised the economy which necessity enforces. Three bushels of 

 my chaffed hay weigh a stone, fourteen pounds, and this is 

 enough for a horse, with a common allowance of oats or chop- 

 ped grain, for twenty-four hours. Very little more will be suffi- 

 cient for a horse standing idle, without other food. Mr. Jones 

 saves more than the wages of a man in a year, viz. more than 

 seven tons of hay, in the keep of his four horses ; for I allow 

 five hundred pounds of hay, including waste, to keep a horse for 

 a month. In the common and careless manner of feeding, this 

 quantity will not do it. So that in an extensive concern, a farm- 

 er will be well paid by keeping a hand exclusively for chaffing 

 his long provender. Yet 1 believe on common farms his tin.e 

 would not be half occupied in this employment." 



I subjoin to this an extract of a letter from Mr. Jones, the 



gentleman above referred to, addressed to Judge Peters, about 



the same time. *' My attention to feeding my horses, four in 



number, with cut hay, by measure, commenced in the fall of last 



year, in consequence of a publication I saw in one of our city 



newspapers, in which were detailed great advantages that had 

 9 



