172 
ON THE MANAGEMENT OE FARM HORSES. 
proportion of the annual expense of the farm, so much so, indeed, 
that it is worthy of the utmost consideration whether some saving 
cannot be effected in this large item of expenditure. It should be 
borne in mind, however, that there are two methods of effecting or 
endeavouring to effect this saving: one, the lessening the quantity 
or quality of the food, the other, the retaining the quantity of food, 
but reducing the number of horses. Now, I must freely confess 
that I incline towards the latter method of lessening these 
expenses, and I do not sympathize with the advocates of the 
starvation principle. Many writers in magazines and other works 
have laboured very ingeniously to shew how very cheaply horses 
can be kept ; one contends that a liberal supply of carrots* is 
alone sufficient without any other food ; another, that abundance of 
straw and a mere taste of corn is enough ; after the precedent, no 
doubt, of those retailers of food who, in the dark alleys of the 
metropolis, vociferously proclaim their “ ha-porth of peas, and a 
suck at the bacon for nothing,” or the still more scientific dis- 
coverer, who found a mode of keeping his horse upon sawdust, 
though, unfortunately, the animal died just as his plan was reaching 
perfection. 
I have before observed, that the number of horses kept on a 
farm must be regulated by the requirements of the seed seasons. 
If eight or ten horses are enough at these periods, they are surely 
enough for the other portions of the year. It is, of course, an object 
to take every advantage of fine weather to make both men and 
horses move nimbly, working at this period of the year both early 
and late. To accomplish these desirable purposes it is essential 
that the men should be icell paid and the horses well fed; an extra 
allowance in the wages of the former for his overtime will be 
money exceedingly well laid out, and not only is it essential that 
the horses should have an additional allowance of corn during this 
period, but their condition should be such that they be capable of 
undergoing extra exertion without injury or fatigue. If they are 
half-starved throughout the winter, they can hardly be expected to 
bustle through the barley and turnip sowing as they ought; and if 
grass is their only diet through the summer, how can they be 
* Although, according in the writer’s objection to the “ starvation system,” 
and being quite satisfied, from long experience, that good ivork can only be 
obtained by good feeding , yet I cannot avoid mentioning that, when residing 
during the last year at Boulogne, I frequently visited the farm of a Norfolk 
gentleman, who there held a couple of hundred acres of turnip-land, cultivated 
as cleanly as if it were in England, and that he fed his cart-horses, during the 
entire winter, solely on carrots, chaff of clover, and straw, without any portion 
of oats or beans. The cattle were of the ordinary Norman breed — something 
like the Suffolk- Punch — ploughing, in pairs, full an acre a day from the 
stubble, and were in excellent working condition. — F. Burke. 
