47 6 Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 
sidered, and rightly considei’ed, a good thing to give a horse a 
winter’s run ? To a horse, indeed — a horse jaded by a long 
spell of work, satiated with corn, heated in the legs, and more or 
less shaky — a good winter’s run is a restorative of marked value 
in many cases. 
Straw will not be much used for bedding in the coming 
winter ; it will all be wanted for food. Moss litter may with 
advantage be used instead of straw for bedding, even where 
straw is worth less than 4 1. a ton. All sorts of rough grass 
under the trees, by the road-sides, in the plantations, and on 
the pastures where the land is sour, is being made into silage or 
into hay. Nothing of this kind should indeed be passed over 
as worthless ; for, even if it make but sorry forage as it is, the 
possibility of improving it by the addition of bean, pea, maize, 
wheat, oat, or any other sort of meal is within the experience of 
most feeders. Bran, rice meal, cakes of various kinds, are all 
less money per ton than hay is likely to be, and indeed already 
is, and they must consequently be used as extensively as may 
be required, with the object of making hay last till “ grass 
day”; wheat, indeed, and flour, and even loaves of bread, are 
being sold now at something less per cwt. than prime hay com- 
mands. Here, then, we have both choice and scope. 
If any man has more hay than he will want, or can make it 
more by following the course suggested, let him sell it to those 
who are anxious to buy it. It will, in fact, be to the interest of 
many farmers to sell all the hay they dare to part with, — sell it 
in good time, and buy corn with the money. If only this sort 
of thing be done generally, and no gambling syndicate be formed 
to rush up the price of corn, there is no very great reason to 
dread the coming winter. As a matter of fact, our cattle must 
be and can be wintered, and although the shoe will keenly pinch 
a large number of farmers, particularly in the southern half of 
the country, ways and means may be found to prevent starva- 
tion, or any very near approach to it. Horses and sheep come, 
of course, within the scope of the remarks already made, but 
one naturally feels less anxiety about them than about cattle. 
The present crisis will have the effect of teaching farmers to be 
as careful of hay when it is plentiful as when it is scarce ; 
and we may all sincerely hope that the lesson will not soon be 
forgotten, for these periods of scarcity are certain to occur now 
and again. 
Town readers of the Journal, who are also horse-keepers, 
will perhaps be interested in the details of the following case. 
A relative of mine, Mr. Johnson, of Casson Street, E., keeps 
four horses for the purposes of his business. During some 
