THE CULTIVATOR. 
191 
straints, as most unquestionably renders the three great blessings of 
free government, life, liberty and property, far less secure than in 
any of the old thirteen United States. I say not this from any in¬ 
vidious motive towards our younger sister states—no, God forbid : 
but simply to urge what I believe to be an undeniable fact, as an in¬ 
ducement to prefer an old to a newly settled country ; in other words, 
to live in and die by old Virginia. Without doubt, there are thou¬ 
sands of as good men in the new states as in the old; but the truth, 
I think, cannot be denied, that there is far less power,—I will not 
say inclination-—in the former, to restrain and punish the immoral 
portion of their population; and hence the perpetration of a much 
greater number of those outrages and crime that mar the peace and 
happiness of every community wherein they are committed. The 
appetite for making money in the new states would be quite as strong 
in the old, if constantly stimulated and provoked by the same pow¬ 
erful incentives; for man is much the same in his passions every 
where. But We have less of that demoralizing spirit of speculation, 
engendered by the inordinate lust for wealth, because there are much 
fewer subjects and opportunities to gratify it. Our government be¬ 
ing much older, all the different trades, professions and callings, es¬ 
sential to a regular organized society, have long existed among us, 
in a numerical ratio, duly proportioned, or nearly so, to each other. 
The necessary consequence of this state of things is, that a syste¬ 
matic, uniform course of business is established for each, which, in a 
great measure, precludes speculation : labor, food, clothing, and all 
which constitutes the material for the internal trade and commerce 
•of the country, possesses an interchangeable value approaching 
much nearer to a certainty, and therefore affording far less chance 
for those inordinate gains frequently made in new countries, and 
which form the sole temptation with most persons to seek them.— 
The new settlers there, with very few exceptions, soon become, to 
the citizens of the old countries, what the lottery brokers and deal¬ 
ers in that species of gambling are to the regular tradesmen and 
yeomanry of every country. The first cannot exist with small, or 
even moderate profits; but live in a constant state of feverish ex¬ 
citement, and with an omnivorous appetite for gain, whose cravings 
increase with every new supply of food, however enormous in quan¬ 
tity that may be. This appetite by frequent indulgence, soon be¬ 
comes a disease, not less destructive, to both moral and physical 
health than drunkenness ; and he who voluntarily, and with no bet¬ 
ter motive than to increase wealth, already sufficient, places himself 
in an atmosphere wherein he is daily and hourly exposed to con¬ 
tract it (as almost every settler in our new states does) can hardly 
expect to escape, nor does he merit exemption. The worst conse¬ 
quence of this all-absorbing passion is, that, in the universal scram¬ 
ble for dollars and cents which it inevitably produces, public spirit is 
paralyzed—our benevolent and social feelings are blunted, if not an¬ 
nihilated; our regard for the preservation of order, and the inviolabi¬ 
lity of law, is either lost or forgotten; and the moral condition of socie¬ 
ty grows worse and worse, until it becomes so intolerable as to end in 
civil commotion and bloodshed. Men know not themselves, while 
living under a government of laws, where justice is regularly ad¬ 
ministered, and crimes certainly punished. But let them once get 
beyond these salutary restraints, and many of them soon become as 
indifferent animals, as if they belonged to an entirely different race 
of beings. To what other causes, but such as I have enumerated, 
can we ascribe the notorious facts, that in some of our new states it 
has not unfrequently happened, that citizens, in broad day light, shoot 
and assassinate each other with entire impunity, in their own houses, 
and in the public streets of their towns and villages; that the civil 
magistrate, in attempting the execution of his duty, has been mob¬ 
bed, and his life endangered, and that large bodies of men have, on 
some occasions, constituted themselves the judges, jurors and exe¬ 
cutioners, of several individuals, either by hanging them with¬ 
out any process of law whatever, or murdering them in a jail to 
which they had been legally committed 1 The end and practice 
of such men might be given in a few words, and thus catechiti- 
cally stated. 
“ Who made you ? I don’t know. For what purpose were you 
made ? To do what I please, if strong enough, and to make money. 
What is the use of making it 7 To make more. What are the 
means 1 Any which you believe you can practice successfully.— 
Are health, and life, and reputation worth risking for such purposes'! 
Aye, verily, and much more, since the command of money enables 
you to command every thing else in this world, exccit the three tri¬ 
fles just mentioned.” 
Superior Cow .—Francis Bloodgood, Esq. late mayor of our city, 
has recently imported a cow from England, of remarkable milking 
properties. Two weeks ago she dropped a fine bull calf; and at the 
writing of this notice, the quantity of milk per day, drawn at morn¬ 
ing, noon and night, and accurately measured in the presence of se¬ 
veral persons, is ascertained to be thirty-three quarts and a pint.— 
Her feed has been one and a half bushel of brewer’s grains per day, 
and as much hay as she would consume. This affords a fine il¬ 
lustration of the vast difference between good and ordinary farm stock. 
HINTS ON FEEDING HORSES. 
In feeding horses with grain , the proper quantity of the respective 
kinds is regulated by weight, for in this proportion are the different 
kinds considered nutritious. As for example, we give to a horse 
per day half a bushel of oats, the weight of which is 17 lbs., and if 
we wish to change to other grain, as barley, rye or Indian corn, the 
same weight will suffice; and as these grains are much heavier than 
oats, a proportionate less quantity, by measure, will suffice. Ano¬ 
ther rule, deemed important, is this, that whenever heavier grain is 
substituted for oats, a quantity of fine cut straw should be added, as 
a substitute for the husk of the oats. This induces a more perfect 
digestion of the grain. 
The practice of giving dry grain to horses when pastured, or fed 
with green cut grass, is condemned; for the grain, thus given, is 
never perfectly digested, on account of the effect of the watery 
juices of the grass upon digestion. When dry grain and green feed 
are given, as much interval should be allowed between the dry and 
green food as circumstances will permit. 
Von Thaer considers 8 lbs. of meadow hay equal in nourishment 
to 3 lbs. of oats; that hay improves by age, if well kept, and is 
most nutritious for horses when a year old ; that the second growth 
is not equally nourishing; and that hay should not be unnecessarily 
exposed in making, the freshness of its scent being peculiarly grati¬ 
fying to horses and cattle. 
In Holland and Flanders, farm-horses are uniformly soiled during 
summer. A horse is supposed to consume from 84 to 100 lbs. of 
green food per day, with occasional grain. An acre of clover, at 
two cuttings, will give twelve tons of green food ; and hence half an 
acre of clover, fed green, will suffice for a horse four months. 
It is also a general practice in Flanders, and is extensively adopt¬ 
ed in Great Britain, to convert the entire food into manger-meat, 
that is, to mix the cut straw and hay, the grain and the roots, or 
whatever is to constitute the provender lor the day, and to feed alto¬ 
gether in the manger, in regular messes. The value of this mode 
of feeding is alleged to consist— 
“1. In its requiring a more thorough mastication of the food than 
when it is given in the common way, thereby assisting digestion, 
and consequently promoting the nutrition of the animal; for, it is 
not only true that old horses lose much of the power of mastication, 
and that young and greedy cattle are apt to devour a considerable 
part of their corn entire, when it is given alone, which passing 
through them in the same state affords no kind of nourishment, but 
all animals are known to derive nourishment from their solid food, 
in a certain degree, in proportion to the care with which it is 
chewed. 
“2. It is consumed in less time. 
“ 3. By the mixture of the materials, some portions of which, as 
damaged hay, or straw, might be refused if given separately, an 
equal consumption of the whole is secured. 
“ 4. By its admitting of being more readily weighed, or measur¬ 
ed, than when given separately, it can be more accurately distribu¬ 
ted to each horse; on which it may be observed, that more injury is 
often done to horses by allowing them an unlimited quantity of rack- 
meat [uncut hay in the rack,] than even by stinting them to a scanty 
allowance ; lor they will not only pass whole nights in eating, when 
rest would do them more service, but, by this extraordinary disten¬ 
tion of the stomach, its powers are weakened, and their general 
health is injured. 
“ 5. It prevents waste, and consequently goes farther.”' 
Mr. Wiggins, whose daily business extends to the feeding of three 
hundred horses, estimates the saving by feeding entirely in this way, 
in the manger, at one sixth. 
Rye is considerably employed as horse feed in America, particu¬ 
larly in Pennsylvania. It is generally coarsely ground, and mixed 
with cut straw or chaff and moistened, by which the mass is incor¬ 
porated. 
