238 
Farming of O.irfordsldre. 
of the year, but supply them with chaff and caving ; others add 
half a bushel of oats more, or one or two pedes of beans, while 
some give carrots or a few swedes. When the spring work 
comes on the corn is increased, and one bushel of oats with 
green food is mostly given is summer. A great quantity of the 
corn-chaff is given in a chisty state; this is highly injurious to 
horses, and not so nourishing as sweet oat straAV chopped up. 
Horses are often crowded together in low, dark, and badly ven-w 
tilated stables. Some horses lodge in the straw yard at night, 
and during the summer are fed there on a green crop : many 
are turned out into the meadows and grass lands at night. On 
the Sarsden property the loose boxes, v/hich are filled with cattle 
in the winter, make very comfortable quarters for the horses in 
summer. The cart-horses are shod in the stable. This is poor 
economy ; the smith, instead of altering the shoe to adapt it to 
the foot, must cut the foot to fit the shoe. Very often too many 
horses are kept for tlie size of the farm ; five horses to lOO 
acres of strong lands, and four to the same quantity of light soil, is 
about the usual number. The Suffolk blood lias much improved 
the horses on the Blenheim estate, but Clydesdales and Cleve- 
lands appear greater favourites there. 
Ploughing is mostly performed with three, four, or five 
horses ; the horses following in line in the furrow, and driven 
by a boy, the carter holding the plough. Pair-horse ploughs with 
reins, though much more common than formerly, are certainly 
not yet 'in the majority. On many soils the deep winter's 
ploughing may require 3 or 4 horses, while the summer's culture 
can be done with two, But the man who contends that all the 
land of the county can at all times be ploughed with a pair of 
horses is more fit to tenant Littlemore Asylum than a clay farm. 
Most provincial customs are founded on right principles ; it is 
only when applied indiscriminately, and under circumstances 
different from those which gave rise to their adoption, that they 
deserve the name of prejudice. The farmer of the old school 
delights to see his " five horses elaborately doing the work of 
two ;" and points with exultation to the instances in which men 
who started with pair-horse ploughing have failed of success. 
No doubt strangers, ignorant of the nature of the soil, who came 
into the county with preconceived opinions which they deemed 
to be all right, while the customs of the county were all wrong, 
on making the attempt to plough heavy ground with a pair of 
half-fed cobs, failed of their object. They started on the wrong- 
soil, with the wrong horses, and wrong feeding for pair-horse 
ploughing. On a great portion of Oxfordshire land two strong 
horses are enough in a plough, but they must be active and well 
fed. On the stonebrash may be seen three or four horses 
