4889 
545 
fyoxseman. 
HORSES vs. BEEF. 
PROFESSOR J. W. SANBORN. 
An importaut discussion; transportation 
charges on horses lower than on other 
domestic stock; advantages of Eastern over 
Western horses; greater care shown in 
horse raising in the East but less skill in 
breeding ; horse-raising not a risky lottery; 
importance of good sires and dams; care¬ 
less breeding common in the East; relative 
cost of raising horses and beeves; compar¬ 
ative consumption of food by both; experi¬ 
ments on this point; extra cost of horses, 
beyond the outlay for feed ; expense of an 
extra year's maintenance; horse-raising 
conducted on sound principles a profitable 
industry. 
The following question is submitted to me 
for an answer: “ It is proposed to encourage 
the breeding of horses on Eastern farms to 
take the place of the beet cattle that were 
grown there before the dressed-beef trade made 
the business generally unprofitable. Can it 
be do n e?” 
The idea seems to be a capital one. Horses 
can not be transported in quarters without 
consid°rable cost for feed and attendance on 
the road. The horse presents, however, one 
great advantage to the Western grower that 
no other animal does—he brings more money 
per pound of weight than any other domestic 
animal, and hence less of his cost is absorbed 
in transportation charges. This is ordinarily 
a very important consideration in the produc¬ 
tion of any article at points distant from the 
markets for it. There are some offsetting 
conditions that are important. It appears to 
me that the New England horse is a hardier, 
livelier animal with more of what is termed 
life, and as the New Englanders call it, snap, 
than the Western horse. I do not know that 
the race courses sustain this view. I presume 
that they do not. I do not know that their 
decision would he conclusive on this point. I 
am quite confident that we get more blind 
and maimed horses here than people get in 
New England. 
Part of it is due to the greater care given the 
animals there. How much I do not know. It 
is hard to analyze conditions where they are 
so complex, without special study of them. 
I notice here a great amount of shoulder 
troubles which might be ascribed to the very 
cheap and poor collars used, and the more 
thoughtless laborers ^colored labor is largely 
used in this State) and somewhat to the more 
inadequate protection from the weather, 
given the horses. I apprehend that this 
whole question of relative value of the horses 
of each section will be one of controversy. 
I incline to the view expressed. 
One valuable advantage would accrue to the 
New England horse—it could receive on the 
8mall°r farms there, more attention and per¬ 
sonal care in growth and training. The value of 
ahorse, unlike that of other domestic animals, 
does not rest upon its pounds of weight, but 
upon other qualities. These qualifies are var¬ 
ious and cannot be discussed here. I may name 
the fact that a horse renders 10 to 15 years of 
service'under ordinary conditions,and that $25^ 
or $3 a year, for perfection of training and 
tractableness is simply nothing compared to 
the value in comfort and execution received. 
I have hsudled horses from large raisers and 
found that their awkwardness, due to inferior 
training was ineradicable. 
More risks by injury are involved in horse 
than in cattle raising, but these may be ac¬ 
cepted as only a small per cent, under good 
conditions, and when counted into the cost, 
they do not very materially affect the prob¬ 
lem. The notion that horse-raising is a sort 
of lottery is a fallacy growing out of the 
vicious habits of breediug, which are worse in 
the East than in the West. A very large 
class of the farmers in New England raise 
colts only when they have a mare that is 
largely unfitted for service. Some lame, 
wind-broken, old, or otherwise unserviceable 
mare is bred in order to make some use of her. 
Breeding horses there, as a rule in farm life, 
is an incident, or a sort of accident, of the 
business of the average New England farmer. 
No study of the market-demands is made in a 
close way, and no such careful attention is be¬ 
stowed on the matter as upon the breeding of 
sheep, cattle and pigs. Indeed I am of the 
opinion tLat the New England farmer breeds 
no domestic animal as well and thoughtfully 
as does his Western brother. This, if true, is 
explainable. I believe that the principle of 
breediug applied to the horse will result in 
the same certainty of success that it gives in 
breeding cattle, aud that we can select our 
type aud breed it, and secure sound horses 
right along by breeding from sound parents 
which are of sound ancestry. These sugges¬ 
tions seem to be necessary, as the process of 
breeding from all sorts of unsound and nonde¬ 
script types has burdened New England horse 
breeding with unnecessary discouragement. 
A survey of the inducements to horse breed¬ 
ing as compared to beef breeding shows an 
encouraging field. A 1,500-pound steer will 
bring, say, $75; while an 1,100-pound horse 
will bring $150, or the latter will bring nearly 
three times as much per pound as the former. 
Is there this difference in the cost of produc¬ 
tion? I most emphatically believe not, and 
that the horse is produced at a profit; more¬ 
over, a horse really well-bred—that is, bred 
from a good type of parents, sound and kind 
—is never below $150 in value, even in the 
hardest times. 
The prevalent notion that horses eat 
more, per capita, than cattle is not true. It 
may be true that a vicious haoit of feeding 
may convert the horse into a mere eating ma¬ 
chine. The horse not having the advantage 
—or disadvantage, as it may be—of four 
stomachs and the opportunity to eat his 
breakfast over and to chew it finer, in con¬ 
suming the same coarse hay that cattle do, 
necessarily chews it finer and hence much 
more slowly, and we misjudge the quantity 
consumed by the time of mastication. On 
this point we are not without testimony. The 
foreign trials that have come to hand show 
that the horse digests a little less hay than 
the ox; but to no very material degree; while 
the results may be said to be inconclusive on 
this point. Wolf, in making up his celebrated 
German feeding tables, allows for a horse at 
hard work, per 1,000 pounds of weight, 17 
pounds of digestible food daily, and for the 
ox 16.1 pounds. Here is about five per cent, 
difference. But which does the more work? 
Really it requires no table of results to show 
us that a work horse utilizes its food for work 
as well as an ox. Do we not all know that a 
horse weighing 1,000 pounds, will plow more 
in a day than an ox weighing 1,500 pounds? 
And in almost any other work it will do more? 
If this be so, then the horse must utilize its 
food to as good an advantage as the ox, or to 
a better advantage so far as these facts can 
give evidence. The working horses on the col¬ 
lege famv-have consumed 23>£ pounds of food 
daily, over one-half of which was in grain. 
A working ox consumes more. Indeed our 
growing steers weighing the same as these 
horses—1.100 pounds—consumed more per day. 
It will be understood that the argument ad¬ 
vanced by these data goes to show that horse3 
make as good use of food as cattle do, forming 
a basis upon which to estimate the relative 
returns from horses and cattle. More direct 
testimony than the above is found in the ex¬ 
periments of Boussingault, of France, and 
Prof. E. VV. Stewart, of New York State. 
Each of them fed colts by weight, and each of 
them found that as good a gain on a given 
amount of food was made by colts as by 
calves of equal weight. The average amount 
of food expressed in the equivalent of bay. re¬ 
quired for the growth of a pound of colt after 
weaning, was9.42 pounds,as found byBoussing- 
gault and Stewart.. Experiments in cattle 
feeding mark this as a very good growth for 
calves of similar weight. 
If it be true, then, that horse flesh costs no 
more than cattle flesh, or at most but little 
more, what reasons exist that make the horse 
cost more than the steer ? Cost of service of 
stallion, care and training, and later maturity. 
Probably $25 will cover the first factors,while 
the last would mean extra maintenance fod¬ 
der for one year. Now, as the average weight 
of a horse weighing 1,100 pounds (supposing, 
for convenience, we assume his birth-weight 
to be 100 pounds) from birth to mature weight, 
would be 600 pounds, we then have to supply 
extra maintenance rations for a 600-pound 
animal for ouo year, which at I S per cent, of 
his live weight daily, would be 10 8 pounds 
daily for winter feed aud a summer pastur¬ 
ing. This would give—hay being $12 per ton 
—$9.54 for hay and, say, $5 for pasturing. 
The reader will understand that 1 calculate 
no grain in this extra year, and only a main¬ 
tenance ration, because the amount it re¬ 
quires to make the growth above mainten¬ 
ance is the same whether we feed for two or 
four years, and I have set the amount requir¬ 
ed to make the growth against that requir¬ 
ed for the growth of an equal amount of 
steer. While I believe that the horse can be 
pushed to maturity as early as the steer, and 
that, so far as weight is concerned, that of 
this extra year need not be put on, yet we 
have to bear in mind that the horse is grown 
for his muscle and not for his fat, and that a 
flabby or immature horse is not in demand. 
If we put our various sums together, we get 
$39 54 as the cost of a horse above the cost of a 
steer up to the present point. The interest and 
cost of theextra year’s attendance (in New Eng¬ 
land the manure, issupposed to practically pay 
for attendance) and general or special rUks of a 
horse over those of a steer—not absolute risks 
but risks more than we take on a steer—would 
probably make the sum over $50, so that the 
cost of a horse over that of a steer would be 
$50 on the basis of the same weight. 
As the food direct costs no more for a 
pound of horse than, for a pound of steer ex¬ 
cept as it is estimated in the $50 above, we 
have a 1.500 pound steer, at five cents a pound, 
costing $75 for food; while a 1,100-pound 
horse at five cents per pound, costs $55.00. If 
to this we add the $50 above, we get a total 
of $105, or to make the figures secure, say, in 
round numbers, $110 as the cost of the four- 
year-old horse. 
In my opinion horse-raising entered upon 
thoughtfully and upon the right basis, will 
pay better than beef-making, and is worthy 
of the attention of that section of the coun¬ 
try referred to in the question. It seems to 
me that a large proportion of the little and 
unsound horses now produced in the Eastern 
States are produced at a decided disadvan¬ 
tage. 
Columbia, Mo. 
Woman's Work. 
CONDUCTED BV EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
T HE ART INTERCHANGE gives some 
very useful hints for summer fancy 
work. Especially pretty is a summer sofa 
pillow, made of heavy, soft, linen damask, 
well laundried to take off the gloss and stiff¬ 
ening. On this is stamped a large conven¬ 
tional design, such as horse-chestnut or oak 
leaves, or large-pecaled flowers. The design 
should be outlined in white rope linen, the 
veins and midribs being done in the same. 
The open spaces between the parts of the de¬ 
sign should be filled in with old gold rope silk 
darning. The surface stitches should be one- 
half inch long, the stitch taken into the goods 
less than one-quarter of an inch and the lines 
of the darning one-fourth of an inch apart. The 
darning is alternated, where one stitch is long, 
the stitch on the next line is taken midway 
the preceding one. This cushion is made up 
plainly, with at the corners cord and tassels of 
the rope linen, with some of the rope silk on 
the outside of the tassels. 
* * * 
Among other pillows described by the same 
authority are chair pillows of figured India 
silk. Occasional figures are worked with self- 
colored filo-fl iss, in long and short stitches, 
here and there outlined in gold. This cushion 
is bordered with a frill of cream lace. 
Hammocks are made in the form of a round, 
cut-work design on brown linen, to be buttou- 
holed in brown silk. The linen, when cut out, 
is placed over a round pillow of yellow Persi¬ 
an silk, puffed around the edges. The back is 
a plain piece of linen, also round, front and 
back being laced together, over the puff. 
Dainty baby pillows are described, being 
worked with sprays of natural flowers in nat¬ 
ural colors, bordered with a frill of the finest 
Torchon lace. 
* * * 
Among other books selected for our summer 
reading is the auto-biography of Harriet 
Martineau, the famous Englishwoman who 
wrote of political economy aud social science. 
Her life is such a story of hard work and per¬ 
severance, under the discouragement of fam¬ 
ily trials, constant ill-health, aud peculiarities 
of disposition, that one would imagine any¬ 
one would be the better for reading it. Nat¬ 
urally, she was inclined to worry—to look at 
the dark side, yet she says: “ As I have grown 
older I have seen more and more the impor¬ 
tance of dwelling ou things honest, lovely, 
hopeful and bright, rather than on the darker 
and fouler passions aud most mournful weak¬ 
nesses of human nature.” There, we should 
all be the better for living up to that. 
* * * 
Though certainly an “ advanced ” woman, 
Miss Martineau had little sympathy with the 
extremists of “ Womeu’s Rights.”. She says 
that women, like men, can obtain whatever 
they show themselves fit for. Let them be 
educated—let their powers be cultivated to 
the extent for which the means are already 
provided, aud all that is wanted or ought to 
be desired will follow as a matter of course. 
Whatever a woman proves herself to be able 
to do, society will be thankful to see her do— 
just as if she were a man. If she be scientific 
science will welcome her, as it has welcomed 
every woman so qualified. If capable of politi¬ 
cal thought aud actions, women will obtain 
even that. Tne time has not come which cer¬ 
tainly will come, when women who are prac¬ 
tically concerned in political life w ill have 
a voice in making the laws which they have 
to obey; but every woman who can think and 
speak wisely, and bring up her children 
soundly, in regard to the rights and duties of 
society, is advancing the time when the inter¬ 
ests of women will be represented as well as 
those of men.” 
* * * * 
Some very pretty sofa pillows are simply 
covered with a rich material, preferably bro¬ 
cade, and then edged with a frill of soft silk. 
* * * 
“ Overdoors, ” or railed shelves placed 
above the door, make very pretty decora¬ 
tions. They look like little balconies, holding 
china ornaments. They fit the top of the 
door, aud are about six inches high. 
LETTERS TO A COUSIN. 
II. 
D EAR COUSIN : You are a charming 
letter writer, for you always remember 
to answer my questions and to make some 
comment on what I've written you, which 
little attention I greatly appreciate. Some 
people never dream of answering a letter; 
they simply sit down and write of whatever 
is uppermost in their minds without ever giv¬ 
ing a thought to the letter which they have 
received. Their letters may be interesting 
and entertaining, but the writers are not, 
strictly speaking, good correspondents. You 
know the old saying that “ the life of a jest 
lies in the ears of the hearer” and if the 
hearer does not make a bright reply or “ ac¬ 
knowledge the corn ” one might as well 
never say good things. I am delighted when 
you write to me about people and books and 
tell me in your frank, bright way, how they 
have impressed you : then if I meet the peo¬ 
ple or read the books you have described I am 
doubly interested. You say that “ People 
I’ve Smiled With,” by Marshall P. Wilder, is 
an entertaining book. I read a review of it, 
with a sufficient number of quotations to give 
me a pretty good idea of the style and general 
tenor of the volume. The author seems to be 
a great admirer of Mr. Blaine and appears to 
consider him a genial, kind-hearted man, 
charming companion and a good story-teller. 
Some of Mr. Wilder’s remarks are very ori¬ 
ginal. I don’t think I ever before heard of 
the east wind going through one “like a piece 
of bad news;” but isn’t the phrase wonder¬ 
fully expressive ? The east wind and bad news 
are certainly two of the most disagreeable ele¬ 
ments we mortals have to encounter on our 
terrestrial journey. Of the two, however, I 
believe the east wind is the more depressing 
on the spirits. 
[Isn't the talk about the cheerless, depressing 
and insalubrious effects of the east wind in 
this country a mere repetition of the talk 
about the effects of the east wind in Western 
Europe ? The conditions are exactly the re¬ 
verse in both hemispheres, however. In the 
Old World the east wind in summer is dry 
and hot, having swept over the solid land 
from the Pacific. In winter it is cold, pierc¬ 
ing and dangerous to health after its passage 
across the snow-clad surface of two conti¬ 
nents. On the other hand, the west wind is 
always mild, rather moist and salubrious, 
tempering alike the heat of summer and the 
cold of winter with the more even tempera¬ 
ture brought from the broad Atlautic. Now, 
the conditions here are the reverse. The 
west and especially the northwest wind 
sweeping from the Pacific across the continent, 
is robbed of its moisture in summer and of its 
heat in winter, and is dry in one season and 
cold in the other, aud at all times less salu¬ 
brious than the east wind which brings the 
purer, more temperate and moister air from 
the ocean. Books written by Europeans very 
justly dwell on the misery of the east wind, 
and the talk is often inconsiderately repeated 
in this country where the conditions are en¬ 
tirely different. The character and effects of 
any wind do not depend on its direction, but 
on the nature of the country and climate 
from which it comes.—E d.] 
r Some one told me not long ago never to ask 
a favor of any one on a raiuy day or on the 
5th of July, the reaction after the Glorious 
Fourth usually making business men desper¬ 
ately uncivil It is said that he who watches 
the clouds never accomplishes anything, but 
that is, in a measure, untrue. It is well to 
make hay on a fine day, and it is best to ap¬ 
proach a person from whom you want a fa¬ 
vor when you feel tolerably certain that he 
or she is in a good humor. After the dinner 
hour is a good time, but never, never before 
breakfast. “Strategy, my boy, strategy,” as 
the old man said, will sometimes achieve suc¬ 
cess where plain, straight-forward action 
would fail. 
Bat stratagem is utterly foreign to sorn e 
natures. I don’t suppose that .you, dear , 
