The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-11-23
Farm Teams.

1t would naturally be supposed from
the farmers effort to avoid expenditure
that he would carefully study the COS
of everything he does. But this view
would be hastily abandoned on examin
ing his plan of conducting farm team
What would be thought of the wisdom
OF man in village or city who KEEP
teams for work and only employed
them, at most, half of the time. II,
would soon find out that his teams rar
him in debt or lett the balance on the
wrong side. Yet he gets q price for g
days work that farmers would think
quite beyond their profits to pay. But
if it is true that the farmer can not at.
ford ordinary prices for team work, can
he, then, afford to let his own team lie
idle half of the time?
Whether he can afford it or not, more
than one-half of the farmers in this
country do not work their teams, on an
average, more than one-half of the time.
How many farmers, with all their abil-
ity for saving expenses, have ever care
rully considered this large waste OF
team capacity for work Should they
carefully count the cost of keeping their
horses supposed to be devoted to horse
work, they would find that for every
full days labor performed the cost had
been fully four dollars per day. If a
miller, lumberman, provide1sof ma
terial of any kind. requiring the service
of teams, can not afford to keep idle
horses in the stable, how can the farmer
afford itP The farmer often complains,
and rightfully, that his margin of profit
is very small, that other branches of in
dustry make larger profits; and admit
ting this conclusion, would it not be
well for farmers to study the methods
of economy in time adopted in other
branches of business? A team horse
will soon eat his head off if kept unem-
ployed, and he will do so whether kept
by the farmer or the manufacturer.
Some farmers suppose their teams
will wear longer, will remain sound and
be idle large part of the time. But
even this is mistake, when it refers to
considerable period Of idleness. FARM
teams that remain unemployed a large
part of the winter are much less capa-
BILE of doing full work in the spring
than they would be had they been kept
at steady, reasonable service. Were
horses to be worked half Of each day,
resting the other half, this conclusion
would have some foundation, but it is a
common fact that farm horses, working
in periods, break down early. Steady,
reasonable work, with iudicous feeding,
is most favorable to a ongusefulness.
Another point made sometimes in IA
vor of this idleness, is, that the team
can be wintered without grain. 1t is
true that horse will eat less without
work-the saving in food is about one
fourth-but the question arises, whether
the labor is not worth much more than
one-fourth the keep. This idleness of
farm teams is very serious matter
upon small farms where the food of the
team represents so large q fraction of
the production. These very farms
would pay a better profit if they had
the benefit of the full work of the team.
There is not too much team work pro-
vided on farms, but too little work for
the teams that are kept. Better cult
walton is what most farms need, and
more instead of les team work is need
ed. There is probably nothing that
more needs reforming in farm practice
than its imperfect cultivation of the
soil, and a better use of the time of the
farm teams will do niue h to improve
it.-L6oc Stock Journal