ON THE MANAGEMENT OF FARM HORSES. 
227 
Home Extracts. 
On the Management of the Farm Horse. 
By W. C. Spooner. 
(Concluded from page 182 .) 
Having now gone through the various articles of food, and 
given their theoretical value according to the amount of nutriment 
contained, a mode of estimating which 1 believe to be correct, and 
consistent with the results of practice, so far as with our imper- 
fect data these results can be arrived at, I proceed to give some 
actual statements of the feeding of farm-horses, derived from 
personal knowledge of the cases in question. On a clay-loam 
farm in a good state of cultivation where the horses are in good 
condition, and the work, though regular, yet harder than usual, 
particularly during seed time, and where two horses only are 
used in a plough, the following is the mode of feeding : — 
During the dead of the winter, between wheat and spring 
sowing, commencing about the middle of November, and ter- 
minating in March, the horses are only allowed a bushel and a 
half of oats each, with barley-straw ad libitum ; with this small 
quantity of oats a large amount of straw is consumed, amounting 
to 37 lbs. daily. The horses are not, as in many instances, sent 
some miles into a neighbouring town for the purpose of bringing 
out a load of inferior dung, but are more usefully employed at 
home. On this farm, straw is plentiful and of the best kind, being 
well intermixed with clover, whilst hay is scarce, being required 
for sheep and cattle. The work at this period of the year is also 
very light. The cost of this feeding may be considered to be per 
week : — 
s. d. 
Oats \\ bushel 4 6 
Straw If cwt. at 2s. . . . 3 6 
Swedes 42 lbs. . . . . . 0 4 
8 4 
As the work of spring comes on, the feeding is gradually im- 
proved till it reaches — 
s. d. 
Oats 2 bushels . . . . 6 0 
Beans 1£ pecks . . . . 2 3 
Hay, not being clover, about 1 cwt. . 4 0 
12 3 per week. 
