126 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
ECONOMICAL METHOD OF KEEPING HORSES. 
BY HENEY SULLY, M. D. 
Having received innumerable letters from gentlemen who keep horses,- 
requesting a description of my plan of feeding, I shall save much trou¬ 
ble both to others as well as myself, by laying my system before the 
public. Having pursued the plan about seventeen years, I am enabled 
to appreciate its full value, and, being perfectly satisfied of its supe 
too large a portion, whilst others will have less than they ought, al¬ 
though the portions are accurately weighed. 
The only certain method, then, is, to let the grain, of whatever de¬ 
scription, be weighed separately from its straw, and the keeper of cat¬ 
tle will soon satisfy himself, that his cattle are in want of nothing in 
the feeding line. Many people object to potatoes, and think them unfit 
for working horses; but, from many years’ experience, I am enabled 
rior excellence, I hope to continue the same as long as I keep horses. |j to recommend them as a constituent part of the thirty pounds, and am 
Most people who know me will allow, that horses in my employ en- j convinced, that it is as wholesome and nutritious a food as can be 
joy no sinecure places, and few people can boast of their cattle being procured for laboring horses, which are called upon sudden emergen- 
in better working condition, or more capable of laborious undertakings, I cies, to perform great tasks, as has been abundantly proved by Mr, 
than mine, ] Curwen, M. P. who kept above one hundred fiorses on potatoes and 
The loft above my stable contains the machinery for cutting chaff 
and grinding corn. From this loft each horse has a tunnel of commu¬ 
nication with the manger below, and a tub annexed to each tunnel in 
the loft for mixing the ingredients composing the provender. 
There should be no rack in the stable, because this may tempt the 
groom to fill it with hay, and thus by overloading the horse’s stomach 
endanger his wind, to say little of its expense and waste, for it is a 
well known fact, that if a horse has his rack constantly replenished 
with hay, he consumes and spoils upwards of thirty pounds per day. 
The manger with which the tunnel communicates, should have cross¬ 
bars, of firm oak, placed at the distance of ten or twelve inches from 
each other, to prevent the horse from wasting his provender in search 
of the grain it contains, and this space between the cross-bars, allows 
the horse plenty of room to take his food. 
The chaff-cutter I make use of, is manufactured by Mr. Wilmott, a 
very ingenious mechanic, who resides about five miles from Taunton, 
on the road to Wiveliscombe. He also provides corn bruisers, of the 
best construction, and any person keeping three or four horses, will 
save the prime cost of his machinery the first year of its trial, and the 
horses themselves, thus fed, to use the language of horse keepers, will 
always be above their work. 
When the provender is thoroughly mixed in the tab, previously weigh¬ 
ing out each ingredient, the mixture should be given in small quantities 
at a time, many times in a day; and at night, enough is thrown into 
the tunnel to last till morning. This process will be found of very little 
trouble to the groom, who will only have to go into the loft six or eight 
times a day. As the component parts of the provender are weighed 
separately for each horse, we are certain he has his just proportion; 
and I have hereunto annexed my scale of feeding in four classes, for it 
sometimes happens that some of the ingredients cannot be procured, 
and at other times that it may be better to substitute others; but, what¬ 
ever grain is given, it should always be bruised or coarsely ground, and 
carefully weighed out; for, by weight alone, is it possible to judge of 
the quantity of farinacious substances the horse consumes; it being 
well known that a peck of oats varies from seven to twelve pounds; 
consequently, if the provender were mixed by measure, there would be 
frequently an uncertainty, as to quantity. Wheat varies from sixteen 
to twelve; barley from thirteen to sixteen; peas from seventeen to fif- 
. teen; beans* from seventeen to fifteen per peck. And as wheat, beans, 
peas, barley and oats are equally good, and of very trifling difference 
in price wjien their specific gravity is taken into consideration, I am 
equally indifferent which grain I use, but I should always prefer boiled 
or steamed potatoes for hard working horses, to be a component ingre¬ 
dient, whenever they can be procured. 
As I call all ground or bruised grain of whatever description, farina, 
it will be so distinguished in the following SCALE. 
( 
Farina, consisting of bruised or ground 
peas, wheat, barley or oats,....... 5 lbs. 5 lbs. 10 lbs. 5 lbs. 
Bran, fine or coarse pollard,. . 7 lbs, 
Boiled or steamed potatoes, mashed in 
a tub with a wooden bruiser,. 5 lbs, 
Fresh grain,... 
Hay cut into chaff,. 7 lbs. 8 lbs. 10 lbs. 8 lbs. 
Straw, &c. in chaff,... 7 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 8 lbs 
Malt dust, or ground oil cake,... 2 lbs. 2 lbs. 
Salt,. 2 oz. 2 oz. 2 oz. 2 oz 
By the above scale it will be seen, that each horse has his thirty 
pounds of provender, in twenty-four hours, Which, I maintain, is full as 
much as he can eat. The two ounces of salt will be found to be an ex¬ 
cellent stimulus to the horse’s stomach, and should, on no account, be 
omitted. When a horse returns from labor, perhaps the groom will 
see the propriety of feeding him from his tub more largely, in order 
that he may be the sooner satisfied and lie down to rest. 
Whenever oat straw can be procured, it is generally preferred; and 
some like to have it cut into chaff without thrashing out the oats; but 
this is a bad plan, for in preparing a quantity of this chaff, unequal 
proportions of oats will be found in each lot, so that one horse will have 
Class 1. 
Class 2. 
Class 3. 
5 lbs. 
5 lbs. 
10 lbs. 
i 
, 5 lbs. 
5 lbs. 
, 6 lbs. 
7 lbs. 
8 lbs. 
10 lbs. 
7 lbs. 
10 lbs. 
10 lbs. 
2 lbs. 
, 2 oz. 
2 oz. 
2 oz. 
The English horse-bean is probably here meant.—E d. 
straw, and always found that their labors were conducted better on this 
than any other food.—gee Curwen’s A gricultural Hints, published 1809. 
MAKING PORK. 
The business of fattening pork for sale is practised to some extent by 
most of our farmers, and when performed economically, or when the 
most is made of the materials given them, it is undoubtedly a source 
of handsome profit. Yet all will admit, that when carried on in the 
manner it sometimes is, the process of pork-making drains, instead of 
replenishing, the farmer’s pocket. 
To make fattening hogs profitable, it is necessarj r , first of all, that 
the breed selected for feeding should be a good one. There is a vast 
difference in hogs in the respect of easy fattening, proper proportion 
of bone, weight, &c. and the farmer who thinks to make "money by 
feeding the long-snouted, hump-backed, slab-sided animals, that are 
too frequently found among farmers, and disgrace the very name of 
swine, will find in the end that he has reckoned without his host, and 
has thrown away both time and money. 
There are several good breeds of pigs now in the country, mostly 
produced by crossings of other kinds with the Chinese, and of course 
having different degrees of aptitude to fatten; and these breeds have 
been so disseminated over the country, that any farmer who is willing 
to make the effort, may have some improved animals in his pens. The 
time has gone by when a hog should be kept four years to weigh four 
hundred; the business of fattening is little understood where hogs of a 
year and a half do not reach that amount, and some pigs have even 
exceeded that weight. 
Next to selecting good breeds, it is requisite that they should be kept 
constantly growing. There must be some foundation for fattening, 
when the process commences, or much time will be lost in repairing 
errors, and much food consumed in making carcass that should be em¬ 
ployed in covering it with fat.. Hogs should be kept in clover pasture, 
a field being allotted to them for their exclusive use, so large in pro¬ 
portion to their numbers that the feed may always be fresh, yet not so 
much so as to run up to seed, or grow coarse or rank. They should 
have the slops of the kitchen, the whey or buttermilk of the dairy, un¬ 
less this is required for young pigs, and in general every thing they will 
eat to advantage, or which will promote their growth. 
The manner in which the materials intended for fattening pork is 
prepared and fed, has a decided influence on the rapidity of the pro¬ 
cess, and of consequence on the aggregate profits. If given out raw, 
much of the value of the article is lost; grain is much improved by 
grinding, but the full effect of all kinds of feed is only brought out by 
cooking. Corn is, without a peradventure, the best article ever pro¬ 
duced for making good pork; and though other substances may occa¬ 
sionally be used with advantage, and may produce pork of fair and 
good quality, yet experience has proved that the real corn fed meat is 
on the whole, superior to all others. Hogs will fat on corn given to 
them in any state, yet it is far preferable when soaked, ground, steam¬ 
ed or boiled. A farmer of our acquaintance, and who is celebrated for 
the weight of his hogs, and the excellence of his pork, is in the habit 
of mixing oats with his corn before grinding, in the proportion of about 
one-fourth, and thinks that if he had not the oats of his own, he should 
be a gainer in exchanging corn, bushel for bushel, for oats, rather than 
not have them to mix with his swine feed. He thinks they eat the 
mixture better than clear corn meal, are less liable to a surfeit, and of 
course will fat much faster with the oats than without them. Peas 
have generally been ranked next to corn as an article for making good 
pork, and they are probably the best substitute that has yet been found, 
hogs feeding well on them, fattening rapidly, and the pork being of 
good quality. It is almost indispensable that peas should be ground 
or soaked previous to feeding. Potatoes are more extensively used for 
fattening hogs than any other of the cultivated roots, and are probably 
the best of the whole for this purpose. Unless they are boiled, how¬ 
ever, they are of little value comparatively, but when cooked they will 
give the hogs a fine start in feeding, and they may then be easily finish¬ 
ed oft" with corn or peas. The fattening of hogs on apples may be con¬ 
sidered as one of the successful innovations of the age, it being certain 
that this fruit possesses a value for that purpose which but a few years 
since was wholly unknown. The success of this experiment has given 
a new value to orchards, and will probably check their destruction, 
