Extracts from C. E.'s Common-Place Book.
Cheap food for horses, from M'Arthur's Financial Facts, 8vo. p. 258.
The author lived in London and kept three horses which he fed as follows.
Two trusses and a half of clover or meadow hay cut and mixed with four trusses of wheat, or barley straw, when cut up, make nearly equal quantities in weight; two heaped bushels of this mixture equal to fourteen pounds weight, are given to each horse in twenty-four hours, being previously mixed with half a peck of corn, (in England oats) ground or chopped, weight 5lbs. with water to wet it; that is, 7 pounds of hay; 7 pounds of straw; 5 pounds of meal; given at six different times, each day and evening. Add 5 pounds of hay at night, makes 24 pounds to each horse in twenty-four hours; and it kept them much fatter than with double the corn each day unground, two trusses of hay a week.
An ox, unworked, eats about 32 pounds of meadow hay per day.
An ox at work eats 40 pounds a day.
If fed in the stable each head of horned cattle will eat 130 pounds green clover just cut, or 30 pounds clover hay a day.
At work, 3 horses eat in all, 48 stones a week of hay, also 48 quarts of oats a week each horse.
At work 18 horses in 12 days, eat 430 stones of hay, which is 14 stones a week for each horse, also 64 quarts of oats a week for each.
An idle horse eat 14 stones of hay a week and no corn.
Native Grape Vine.
August 22, 1807.
In the garden of Joseph Cooper, Esq. of New Jersey, just opposite to Philadelphia, is one grape vine which with its branches, covers 2170 square feet of ground. On this one vine are now grapes supposed to be forty bushels, and probably much more. It produced last year one barrel of wine, which was made without sugar, and is judged to be quite as good as Madeira of the same age, by a man brought up in the Madeira wine trade. Under this vine the ground produced a good crop of grass this season. It is a native American vine, transplanted from that same neighbourhood.[3]
If 2170 square feet produced 32 gallons, then one acre which is 43,560 square feet would produce about 20 barrels, or 640 gallons but allowing space for avenues, say about 15 barrels, or 480 gallons.
It is expected that the crop of grapes for 1807 will produce much more than those of 1806.
One acre yielding 480 gallons,
at $1.00, is - - - $480.00
at $1.50, is - - - $720.00
This holds out a profitable culture to farmers.
C. E.