38 
Economy in Cultivation. 
may be) one-horse carts do at least equally well, and that if there 
is horse-power sufficient to keep the ploughing in good place, 
that should be strength enough for all the other operations of 
an ordinary arable farm. This brings me to the question of 
farm horses, and their suitability for the work they have to do. 
It has been for a long time the fashion to keep a heavy class 
of horse of the Shire type, such horses having been found very 
saleable for town work, and farmers have been advised to go in 
for breeding this class of horse, working him up to five or six 
years old, and then selling him at a good price for town work. 
This is, no doubt, a wise thing to do on grass farms, or where the 
production of marketable horses is the chief business of the farm — 
in short, where the farm is kept for the horses ; but where horses 
are kept for the purpose of working the farm, I submit that heavy, 
slow horses are a mistake, and that farmers should go in for the 
van-horse type of animal, 16 hands high, with short legs, that 
will walk 25 per cent, faster than the Shire horse and do that 
much more work, provided he is not overweighted. I much 
prefer this kind of horse to any other, and if quick despatch 
is to be the order of the day in the future of arable farming, a 
change in this direction is essential. Then, if it is desii’ed to 
dispose of these horses in their prime, there is no class of horse 
that sells more readily or, perhaps, at more money. The chief 
difficulty is to breed them, or buy them, as the case may be ; 
but I have had some satisfactory results from crossing the light, 
active cart-mare with a thoroughbred horse, and no doubt the 
hunter mare and the cart-horse would do nearly equally well. 
The policy of farmers of arable farms selling out their horses 
at five and six years old appears to me to be a doubtful one, as 
it generally means playing with these animals for a couple of 
years, or, in other words, keeping two horses and a man going 
at slow pace for the benefit of the young horse ; this man is 
generally the head horseman, who sets the pace for all the 
others, the result being general sluggishness of men and horses. 
It should be borne in mind that a team of horses working the 
gang plough at the rate of three miles per hour continuously 
for seven hours, turning 2 feet wide, ploughs five acres ; a team 
with a single plough, turning 1 foot at the rate of two miles 
per hour, which is about the fashionable pace, would turn rather 
less than If acres in the same time. 
The tendency of the day, in every business excepting farming, 
appears to be to get as much work done as possible with the 
minimum exertion to the operative. This seems to me to be true 
economy, and to carry it into operation should, I think, be 
the aim of the employer. I think the plough should be ridden, 
