344 [Assembly 



that six horses, at hard work, had been kept on lucerne instead of 

 hay, but with an allowance of oats and cut straw for twelve weeks; 

 six from the first cut, four from the second, and two from the third; 

 which, valuing the hay saved at six shillings per horse per week, 

 would amount to $36. A paper in the communications to the board 

 of agriculture in England, states, that in one year, 23 horses have 

 been kept 20 weeks, and in the next, 28 horses during 18 weeks, up- 

 on eleven acres alone, which gives an average of three roods per 

 horse in nineteen weeks. An ordinary sized cart-horse could con- 

 sume, easily, 100 lbs. of green food of any kind, in one day, and a 

 small allowance of oats, say two quarts. If the same horse were al- 

 lowed to run over a three acre field, he would probably destroy three 

 hundred pounds of food while obtaining one hundred. I have found 

 that a square rod of ground, covered with a luxuriant crop of grass, 

 is sufficient to last a horse one day, with a small quantity of oats. 



The English cavalry allow their horses in barracks 12 pounds of 

 hay and 10 pounds of oats per day, on which, they say, they are 

 kept in high condition. I cannot imagine it possible, as in 1,000 

 parts of the best grass, there are only 82 parts of soluble nutritive 

 matter, 72 parts of mucilage or starch, 4 parts of saccharine matter, 

 and 6 parts of insoluble matter. If the cavalry horses stood still, I 

 should imagine that quantity of food might be sufficient, as inactive 

 horses require much less food than horses that are employed. The 

 bodies of horses are all the time wasting, and the waste is propor- 

 tioned to the activity of the animal; therefore the working horse 

 requires nourishment proportional to the waste of his body. A horse 

 soiled will consume as much food as 8 sheep: a cow in milch as 

 much food as 12 sheep: an ox when fattening, as much food as 10 

 sheep : a calf as much food as 2 sheep. 



When you go upon ^ farm, and find the farmers horses looking 

 plump, well formed, hign spirited, and powerful, you are apt to say 

 at once, that horse must have come from prime stock; whereas the 

 credit is entirely due to the farmer, as you may take an animal bred 

 from the best stock in existence, and if allowed by the farmer to suf- 

 fer deprivation of proper food, he will never become perfectly de- 

 veloped, either in bulk or proportion. He will never be free from 

 disease, and will not have any constitution. The same rule will 

 apply to all kinds of animals, whether man or beast. When, there- 

 fore, you find on a man's farm, fine stock, well 'proportioned, and of 

 the standard size, you must award him the credit, and not the breed. 

 You may take an animal of the most inferior kind, and by judicious 



