No. 151.] 345 



use of nutritive food, make him attain great size; for examples, 

 look at our monstrous hogs, made sometimes to weigh 1,100 pounds; 

 our immense prize oxen, which have reached more than 3,000 pounds, 

 the parents of which are frequently moderate in size. Who will say 

 this degree of perfection was not produced by the farmer. 



It is from artificial feeding that our markets are supplied the year 

 round with fine beef, pork, calves and sheep, and the same farmers 

 who now raise these animals in open fields, could, by soiling them, 

 add 20 per cent to their profits, provided the crops they raise for 

 the purpose are supplied, while growing, with proper nutriment, 

 from which they can assimilate organic or inorganic matter. The 

 animal derives his strength, his growth and his bulk from the sub- 

 stance afforded by these crops. From every 1,000 parts of gluten 

 a horse obtaines from his food, he receives 557 parts of carbon, 78 

 parts of hydrogen, 220 parts of oxygen, and 145 parts of nitrogen. 

 By manuring his crops with highly nitrogenized substances, the 

 farmer adds vastly to the amount of gluten. If his horses be kept 

 fat in winter, their bones and muscles will be defended against cold, 

 and the acids of aliments will be so tempered, as to strengthen and 

 maintain their whole frame. Let it be remembered that the horse is 

 a native of warm climates, and do not, as is usual among farmers 

 in our northern States, turn them out in the barn-yard to obtain a 

 scanty allowance of poor coarse food during the winter. They are 

 liable to numerous diseases which are not unfrequently brought on 

 by such injudicious and cruel management. When once diseased, 

 it is almost impossible to find out what that disease is, as his struc- 

 ture is amazingly complicated. There are but two indications 

 showing internal disorder; the one is an indisposition to work, and 

 the other a refusal to eat. When either of these signs are manifest, 

 you must at once let the animal rest, and search for his disorder, and 

 on no account compel him to labor. Soil your horses, feed them 

 during the winter on a variety of food, such as oats ground and whole, 

 bran, ship stuff, beans, peas, turneps, carrots, potatoes and parsnips, 

 occasionally steamed separately, and together. In summer keep 

 them ahvays confined in airy stables, and feed them clover, rye 

 grass, bruised grains, green corn stalks, cider pomace, oil cake, hay, 

 &c. Be particular to give them three-fourths of a pound of salt per 

 week, occasionally two ounces of sulphur, and frequently tw'o ounces 

 of wood ashes. By good keeping and judicious management, a pair 

 of horses, perfectly sound when young, will last and labor constant- 

 ly twenty-five years, and to the end will retain their spirits. I have 

 a pair of bay horses on my farm, that are now twenty years old, 



