The Brookhaven leader., 1883-11-29
Farm Teams.

II would naturally be supposed from
the farmers effort to avoid expenditure
that he would carefully study the cost
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 a man in village or city who kept
teams for work and only employed
them, at most, half of the time. He
would soon find out that his teams ran
him in debt or left the balance on the
wrong side. Yet he gets a price for n
days work that farmers would think
quite beyond their profits to pay But
ii it is true that the farmer can not af-
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, q prOvider of 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 it? The farmer often complains,
and rightfully, that his margin of profit
{: lot hav | e
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
healthy to greater age, if permitted to
he idle large part of the time. But
even this is a mistake, when it refers TO
a 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 judicous feeding,
is most favorable to long usefulness.
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 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 Guilt
walton is what most farms need, and
more instead of les s team work is need
ed There is probably nothing that
more needs reforming in farm practice
than its imperfect cultivation of the
soil, and better use of the time of the
farm teams will do much to improve
it.-LtUe Stock Journal.