Any article - such as cut fodder, bran-chaff, hay-seeds, of meal-seeds - which ensures mastication of the grain with which it is mi-fled.

"Mr. Harper of Bank Hill, Lancashire, ploughs seven acres per week the year through, on strong land, with three horses each of which receive two bushels of oats per week, with hay during the winter six months, and during the remainder of the year one bushel of oats with green food.

"Mr. Ellam of Glynde, in Sussex, gives two bushels of oats, with peas-haulm, or straw, during thirty winter weeks; and one bushel of oats, with green food, in summer.'*

In Scotland, farm-horses are usually put upon hard food by the beginning of October, receiving hay and a medium allowance of oats, from six to nine pounds. In the months of December and January, the hay gives place to straw, and the oats are still farther reduced. In February, hay and a full allowance of oats are given, and form the most of the food till the commencement of June, when grass comes in. The allowance of oats is then reduced, and the grass is either given in the stable or in the field.†

As winter food, Professor Low recommends cut-hay, cut-straw, bruised or coarsely-ground grain, and cooked potatoes, in equal proportion by weight. Of this mixture he says 30 to 35 pounds, or, on an average, 32½ pounds, will be sufficient for any horse during the twenty-four hours.

In the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, No. 21, the following mixture, in which there is no hay, is recommended for its economy. The horse is fed thrice, receiving at each time fifteen pounds : -

It is unnecessary accuracy to speak of straw or potatoes by half pounds. Two or three pounds, more or lees of either, produce little actual, and no appreciable difference on the horse.

In many, or most of the places in this neighborhood, farm horses are fed four or five times while working nine or ten hours per day. In the morning, about five o'clock, they are fed with grain; they go to work till eight, when they are fed again, sometimes on boiled roots, to which, corn-dust, light oats, or meal-seeds may be added, and sometimes on raw grain; they work from nine till twelve or one - are fed a third time; return to work till six or seven - are fed a fourth time, generally on boiled food, unless there be grass. Some give a small quantity of grain about nine or ten o'clock, which forms a fifth feed, but this is not common.

* Complete Grazier, 181. Agricultural Survey of Sussex, pp. 378, 381 † Low s Elements of Agriculture.

The farmers hereabout reserve the light husky oats for home consumption. It is very well to do so, for they answer as well as any others, if given in sufficient quantity. But I often see much of this grain wasted. It is boiled with roots, or it is scattered raw upon the boiled food and given along with it. It does not soon burst in boiling, and the horse swallows it whole. Such oats should either be bruised by the rollers, or given raw, with a little chaff.

[The best food for ordinary working-horses in America, is, as much good hay or grass as they will eat, corn-stalks or blades, or for the want of these, straw, and a mixture of from 16 to 24 quarts per day, of about half and half of oats and the better quality of wheat bran. When the horse is seven years old past, two to four quarts of corn or hommony or meal ground from the corn and cob is preferable to the pure grain. Two to four quarts of wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat, peas, or beans, either whole or ground, may be substituted for the corn. A pint of oil meal or a gill of flax-seed mixed with the other food is very good for a relish, especially in keeping up a healthy system and the bowels open, and in giving the hair a fine glossy appearance. Potatoes and other roots, unless cooked, do not seem to be of much benefit in this climate especially in winter - they lie cold upon the stomach and subject the horse to scouring; besides they are too watery for a hard-working animal. Corn is fed too much at the south and west.

It makes horses fat, but can not give them that hard, muscular flesh which oats do; hence their softness and want of endurance in general work and on the road, in comparison with northern and eastern horses, reared and fed on oats and more nutricious grasses.]

The cost of keeping farm-horses has been variously estimated at from 15 to 40 pounds per year. There is, without doubt, a good deal of difference in different places, dependent upon the size and work of the horse, and also upon the varying price of his food. Some feed at much less cost than others, by employing cheap substitutes during the high price of any article of ordinary consumption. When oats are dear wheat, barley, beans, or roots, may partly or wholly supply their place, and hay may be entirely withheld if good straw can be procured. It has been boasted that farm-horses may be kept at summer work on cut green food, with almost no grain. What the owner might call work is not known. But in this country grass alone will not produce workable horses. If food is not given, work can not. be taken. Every man who has a horse has it in his power to starve the animal; but that, I should think, can afford little matter for exultation.