Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1895 — Feeding Horses Automatically. [ARTICLE]

Feeding Horses Automatically.

The Maine man who rigged up a common alarm clock so that it would open a sluice and let some grain fall into the horse’s feed box at a certain hour in the morning is doubtless an original inventor iu one sense of the term, but the plan is 4n operation in New York and other cities on a still larger scale. One clock, specially designed, is made to operate from twenty to forty clocks in a single stable, and perhaps a dozen stables are now so equipped. These are mostly owned by milk coinpanies. It Is often desirable to have horses fed at a very early hour, and this plan makes it possible to give them grain or any other dry stuff, which can be stored for hours and then dropped through a hopper long before the man who must clean and harness them Is out of bed. The boxes that contain the food over iflght have trap doors in the bottom and are provided with suitable spouts discharging into the manger. From each trap door a wire runs to the clock, which Is arranged to liberate at the designated hour a heavy weight that moves a lever to which all these wires are fastened.—New York Tribune.