72 ON CUTTING AND PREPARING FEED. 



necessary machinery can easily be had, attached to a threshing 

 mill. He cuts the hay and straw very short, and gives it a 

 preference to clover, if it has been cut before it has been seeded, 

 and is well harvested. He never threshes his oats, if well har- 

 vested, but cuts them in the machine altogether. This, howev- 

 er, renders it impossible exactly to ascertain the difTerence of 

 expense between the two systems. His horses are now as 

 healthy and able to do their work as ever he knew them ; and he 

 has lost only one horse since he adopted the new plan. If 

 he had fed his horses according to the former plan, at the 

 price which corn new fetches, it would have cost him at best 

 £1 16s. 2(1. for each horse per week, but according to the 

 new plan, they only cost, as has been already stated, £1 2s. 6rf., 

 making a difference of no less a sum than 13s. 8d. on each 

 iiorse per week or £35 10s. Sd. per annum. Such experi- 

 ments as these, conducted on a great scale, cannot be too gener- 

 ally known and practised." 



It is well known, (continues Lindain) that a bushel of corn, 

 when boiled or bruised, or a hundred weight of hay or straw, 

 when cut, will go much farther than when entire. If a horse is 

 compelled to grind or cut these articles with his teeth, the labor 

 occasions a diminution of strength and the additional time it re- 

 quires lessens that which might be devoted to repose. Jt is novir 

 generally admitted that the saliva is of less use in promoting di- 

 gestion, than was formerly believed to be the case ; and that this 

 important operation is performed chiefly by the gastric juices of 

 the stomach. If therefore the nourishment is put into the stom- 

 ach in a state fit for the gastric juice to eat upon it, whether that 

 is performed by machinery from without, or by the teeth within, 

 is of little consequence." 



My next statement will be that of William Phillips, Esq., dat- 

 ed Philadelphia, June 10, 1824, and addressed to John Hare 

 Powell, Esq. 



" In reply to your inquiry respecting my experiments in the 

 use of corn fodder, and opinion of Eastman's Chaff Cutter, which 

 1 have had in operation for some time, I with pleasure communi- 

 cate the entire satisfaction which both have afforded me. It is 



