Show pastures and hages are most economical the liberal use of pastures and rough ages has cut the cost of keeping work horses materially on webster county iowa farms according to iowa state college at ames farmers who vilio fed horses largely on grass and hages had feed bills of 45 or less while farmers who saved saed the pasture and hay and fed mostly grain had feed bills of considerably more one amounting to 06 these figures were gathered front from records of farm account keepers the lowest average cost ot of keeping horses was 33 but in this case a tractor and a truck did most of the heavy work the four farmers who kept thi feed costs down lowest averaged 20 grain 1 worth of hay 11 for pasture and allowed the horses free access to the straw pile the four farmers who had the highest average costs fed 54 worth of grain 18 for hay and 4 for pasture with only a limited amount of straw the grain ration on tile the farms having the lowest cost consisted of three fourt fourths fis corn and one fourth oats while on th ehigh cost farms the ration was two fifths corn and three fifths oats the first group of farmers turned their heir horses on pasture at night and when they were not working they fed straw instead of bay and roughed them on cornstalks corn stalks the latter group kept the horses in the barn and fed oats except when it was certain the horses would be on pasture for a long period |