1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



bodied, wide-hipped, strong loined saddle-horses, 

 the lineage of which, in a few instances, we can 

 still trace, by their compact forms, to the breed 

 of race horses encouraged by our forefathers, who 

 bred horses for nseftd jjurposes, to carry men long 

 distances, and not the spindle-shanked velocipedes 

 bred by our turfmen of the present day, that break 

 down after running a few furlongs with a baby on 

 their backs. 



ECOETOMY IN FEEDING STOCK. 



In some parts of New England, the hay crop, 

 this year, is very light, and in many sections it 

 falls considerably short of an average yield. In 

 portions of Western Vermont it is almost a fail- 

 ure. A gentleman whose farm lies on the shore 

 of Lake Champlain informed us recently, that on 

 the same land which last year produced one hun- 

 dred and twenty tons, he cuts this year only twenty 

 tons ; and that in his immediate neighborhood, 

 many fields were not mowed at all, as it would 

 not pay to swing a scythe over them. 



These facts naturally suggest to every farmer, 

 the importance of economy in spending his hay. 

 But even where there is a full crop, our long win- 

 ters and the severe cold of our climate make the 

 question of economy in feeding stock one of 

 great interest to the farmers of New England. 

 Even in old England, where the winters are far 

 more mild, this subject is much discussed and 

 much experimented upon. Scientific men, like 

 Mr. Ilorsfall, Dr. Anderson, and others, have 

 instituted the most thorough experiments in com- 

 pounding the various materials of food, while 

 practical feeders are fully alive to the necessity of 

 using every means to economize that part of their 

 crops which is consumed on their farms. 



Wo believe that American farmers have rather 

 neglected this branch of farm economy. They 

 have in many ways endeavored to increase the 

 production of their fields ; have taken advantage 

 of various appliances to diminish the cost of pro- 

 duction, by the use of machinery and better con- 

 structed implements ; have made trial of artificial 

 manures, new crops, and new processes of culti- 

 vation; have been careful in harvesting their 

 crops — scolding Billy or Georgy roundly if a few 

 thin scatterings from a huge load of hay have 

 been left upon the ground. But after the barns 

 are filled, and the inclemency of the weather has 

 driven the cattle to the shelter of the stables, with 

 a sharp appetite for the winter's store, it would 

 seem that the great majority of our farmers are too 

 indifferent to the importance of economy in feed- 

 ing out so large a portion of the whole production 

 of their farms as is required to sustain their ani- 

 mals during the long period of frost and snow, 

 which makes up our New England winters. 



In our monthly for January, we published some 

 suggestions bv Mr. 11. Lincoln, of Lancaster, for 



a plan of warming stables, and of steaming or 

 cooking in some way the food for the cattle, based 

 on the success which some English feeders claim 

 for their experiments in those particulars, by 

 which stables are kept at a temperature of 60°, 

 and the cattle are fed with warm and palatable 

 messes. 



But remembering the adage, that "we must 

 creep before we go,'' we think it will be well for 

 most of us, in this country, to begin by battening 

 our stables, and perhaps where the soil is suf- 

 ficiently dry and warm, by lowering the lodging- 

 rooms of our cattle a little below the surface of 

 the ground, so that when we do conclude to erect 

 furnaces and cooking apparatuses in the base- 

 ment of our barns, the change to which our stock 

 will be subjected may be less than it must be 

 now, when a loosely boarded stable admits, by 

 broad cracks from beneath, as well as from the 

 sides and ends, the "bracing" cold of our frequent 

 zero-mornings, and the chilling dampness of our 

 protracted north-east storms. 



A constant improvement is going on in New 

 England in respect to the shelter of stock. A 

 New Hampshire farmer recently stated that he 

 could remember when there were but two or three 

 barns in his town, which had "great doors." The 

 drive-way to the floor was guarded by poles or 

 boards a few feet high, allowing the snow to drift 

 in, by cart-loads, and making the temperature the 

 same in the barn as out of doors ; hence the say- 

 ing, "as cold as a barn." Now, he continues, 

 "our farmers use only well seasoned and matched 

 boards, or they double board or batten ; and they 

 would almost as soon erect a new house without 

 a cellar, as to build a new barn without one." 



Some experiments in feeding hogs, reported by 

 a correspondent of the Ohio Farmer, show a sur- 

 prising difference in their gain in vt^arm and cold 

 weather. In the latter part of October, 100 hogs 

 averaging 200 pounds each, were fed in covered 

 pens all they could eat of corn and cobs ground 

 together, steamed, and given in allowances five 

 times a day, In a week they were weighed, when, 

 reckoning 70 pounds of corn and cob as equal to a 

 bushel of corn, and pork at four cents a pound, 

 the hogs paid 80 cents a bushel for the corn. The 

 same experiment was continued. The first week 

 in November, the weather being colder, the hogs 

 paid 62 cents a bushel. The third week the corn 

 brought only 40 cents, and the fourth week it 

 brought only 26 cents, the weather continuing to 

 grow colder. Another lot was fed through Decem- 

 ber, which gave only 26 cents a bushel for the corn. 

 A part of the time the temperature was at zero, 

 and then the hogs only gained enough to pay^i'e 

 cents a bushel for the corn. 



In respect to the economy of wai-mth in the 



