The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1905-01-05
Horses in Winter.

anu luSy are dill luS UoIISI LII ~.
find on close observation that the
horses we work through the winter
are the horses that can stand the
rough usage of summer the best.
Hence, we give our horses all the en-
ployment we can, taking care not to
rather to increase their flesh ready
for the summers work. This leaves
their muscles, shoulders and constitu-
ton generally in much better state
than if they were idle. Naturally they
are looked after better as they are
under the eye of the man more and
much less liable to accidents than
horses running idle. Employment we
find for them in different ways, such
as drawing wood, taking manure to
the field. moving feed stuff or any
thing that we can find to do that will
give us profit enough for a mans
wages and board, and as for the little
extra feed they take I feel satisfied
we can charge that to profit in the
extra work they can do through the
summer.
The principal feed we use for our
work horses is timothy hay, oat
sheaves and oat straw. In the morn
ing we generally give them good
forkful of oat straw with little hay
on top, by way of relish. At noon
we give feed Of hay and in the even
ing another forkful of straw with a
little hay, and at their last feed for
the night we clean out of their man
| gers any refuse straw which goes for
bedding, and give them an oat sheaf.
AS for the wild hay l do not like it,
and l would rather trust to the oat
straw for the wintering of horses. l
think there is mere strength in the
wild hay, and the horses will stand
is as healthy as the oat straw. Our
| grain feed consists principally OF
crushed oats and bran. l am firm
believer in variety of feed, especially
for horse not working hard, as one
food helps to digest the other. At
night about four times week we
give them a feed of boiled barley.
Scalded chop 1 think quite as good,
but we generally boil it. We give
very much the same feed to the
horses we cannot work as to those
we do, with the exception that at
noon they do not get hay and oats.
We have big stack of wheat straw
in the yard and turn them out about
ten o'clock, letting them feed at it
until evening. We always keep a
trough in the yard with salt in it, so
that they can have lots Of it. We
find it good thing. I think many
horses go wrong when fed straw for
lack of salt. Some object to horses
running out loose when there are q
number of them together, for fear of
them getting kicked, but prefer run
ming chances Of their getting stray
kick rather than to allow them to
stand in the stable breeding trouble
in the shape of indigestion, bad blood,
distemper and swelled legs.
Horse Speed and Mechanics.
In long and interesting effort to
produce the very best trotters Ameri
cans have become the most skillful
developers of the speed of harness
horses the world has known, and as
drivers they are unequaled, says Johr
G.. Speed in the Century. This skill
has been assisted by the ingenious in
ventors who have contrived wagons SC
| light and frictionless that the weight
trotter now carries is not more than
sufficient to keep him steady, and is
virtually no handicap at al. Take
two horses of equal speed and har
ness, and shoe and harness one as the
horses Of 1850 were harnessed and
shod and the other as those of this
year are turned out, and the horse in
the older rigging would be distanced
while the winner would scarcely have
to extend himself.
The fast time in the present records
owes much to mechanical improve
ments, and much more to more skill
full development and driving than to
better breeding, though do not pre-
tend to deny that certain individual
horses have recently gone faster than
any of the old-timers would have gone
let the conditions have been what they
might. But the Morgans, the Clays
and the Goldusts were reproducing
types, which the standardized trot.
tiers are not. That they were types
was because they were rich in that
primitive eastern blood without which
no great type has ever been created OF
maintained.
Selling ana Grazing.
DR.. Jordan in his work, 1.-The Feed.
ing of Animals" says: It is 40 longer
q debatable question whether or not
soiling is profitable under most condi
tons. Unlimited testimony can be fur
nished showing great gain from every
point Of view of even partial soiling as
an amendment to the pasture. Wheth.
er soiling should be substituted en-.
tirely for grazing is business matter
which should be decided according to
the conditions involved. In the first
place much more food is produced Del
unit of area by soiling than by pastur
age. Armsby found that two soilins
crops in one season, for instance rye
followed by corn, yielded five times a
much digestible organic matter as ras
ture sod when the whole growth on
| the latter was plucked without waste