THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



385 



lore it is well to make the riddle in two or more suc- 

 cessive steps, say of 1^ or 2 inches fall each, to break 

 the masses of stuff', and present fresh surfaces, as it 

 were, to the action of the riddle. Of course there must 

 be a part of the riddle free from holes immediately 



under the fall, in order to receive the stuff and transmit 

 it in its newly-arranged posture by horizontal sliding 

 (produced by the jogging of the riddle) to the apertures 

 further on, as any falling or jumping upon the riddle 

 is likely to pop pieces of the cavings through. 



BEANS FOR HUNTERS. 



As regards the propriety of giving hunters beans with their 

 oats, T do not consider they should be given iadiscriminately 

 to all horses in any way ; and, to such horses as may require 

 them, most certainly not wilh the oats. Most horses are ex- 

 cessively foud of the taste of beaug; and thus habituating 

 them to get this addition to their oats is very apt to make 

 them refuse a feed without them. The way I recommend 

 beans being given is with three or four double handfulls of 

 chaff, and that wetted so as to hold any small particles of the 

 bruised beans — for some such will always be found. The chaflf 

 prevents greedy feeders from swallowing the beans without 

 proper mastication, and, being given as a distinct feed, does 

 not habituate the horse to their taste with his oats. I hold it 

 a bad plan to accustom a youn^ healthy horse (reasonably 

 worked) to beans. They may be necessary when the stomach 

 becomes weakened and inert from age or over-work ; but strong 

 stimulants to the stomach, unless taken medicinally, are bad 

 for biped or quadruped. The strong healthy young man of 

 twenty may like his bottle of wine a day ; so may the five- 

 year-old horse his beausj but if accustomed to them, what will 

 the one want at the age of fifty and the other at twelve ? 

 Beans might be necessary to hunters when they were at cover- 

 side at daybreak, and probably did not get home till the same 

 hour they now usually do when hunts meet at half-past ten or 

 eleven. In such days a fox was hunted to death ; now he is 

 raced into. Horses' were then absolutely wearied out with a 

 day's bunting ; now they are blown and exhausted for the 

 time being, but usually recover themselves ere they reach their 

 homes. Horses refusing to feed after hunting was much more 

 frequent (as I have beard) in those days than it is now. A 

 pedestrian, after a long fatiguing match of sixty miles, walking 

 against time or a competitor, will feel all his energies pros- 

 trate ; nor cau we wonder if his stomach beoomes so also ; but 

 the runner of five miles, though more blown aud exhausted 

 than the other wheu he stops, recovers in a quarter of an hour, 

 and is quite ready in half a one for whatever you may put be- 

 fore him. The case is somewhat parallel as regards horses, 

 unless their powers have been so overtaxed as to produce abso- 

 lute illness. Post-horses, in former days, consumed a good 

 many beans. Well might horses want them, who frequently 

 were taken two, sometimes three, journeys a day, of twenty 

 miles each. Coach-horaes wanted them, that in former days 

 were driven sixteen or seventeen mile stages over roads like a 

 ploughed field. In my remembrance, the old Bath and Bristol 

 Blue drove such stages. Horses undergoing such Idbour re- 

 quired beans, as the coal-porter requires porter. Beans for- 

 merly were iu common use in training stables. Those were 

 the days when the trainer had the majority of his string (five, 

 six-year-olds, and aged horses) running heats, and those often 

 four miles. Here direct lasting stamina was wanted, and the 

 old platers required their old hearts kept warm by stimulants; 

 but the case is altered now. If a trainer has a four-year-old 

 in his stable, he is " the old horse," and all the remainder of 

 his lot are juveniles. Except in the case of a particular colt, a 

 trainer would never dream of giving a two-year-old beans. He 

 would hold them as the forerunners of colic, flatulency, con- 

 Btipation, and eventually fever. Iu former days grooms kept 

 the bowels of horses more or less in a constant state of consti- 

 pation, and judged the hardness of what a horse voided as a 

 proof of condition. Formerly, eveu with a hunter, when he 

 found occasion for evacuation necessary, he stopped short if 

 permitted to do so. It was an effort be could hardly make 

 while walking ; it was all but a painful act. Aud this was 

 held condition. It was a state in which, if I saw a horse of 

 mine, I ahould immediately resort to the brau-bin. 



Horses going a journey is now a thing spoken of as one of 

 the strange acts performed by our ancestors and their horses. 

 It was then ten miles and stop ; ten miles again, the stoppage 

 repeated ; ten miles and a long stop to lunch or dinner ; aud 

 then another ten miles brought horses aud travellers to their 

 resting-place for the night. Horses subjected to the profuse 

 sweats a heavy carriage and execrable roads produced, and 

 theu perhaps saturated with rain, required their insides kept 

 warm. But in these days a man owning horses aud carriages 

 takes them with him by the railroad, as naturally as he takes 

 his hat and gloves when he intends walking. Well, these peri- 

 patetic stables, coach-houses, and sitting-rooms are extremely 

 convenient. Gentlemen and ladies have not the trouble of 

 rousing themselves to look at the country as they speed 

 through it, not being enabled, if they wished it, to see much 

 more of it in their carriage than their horses in theirs. 



Mdis d nos moutons. Bruised oats have been brought before 

 the public eye with the paramount recommendation of saving 

 — in short, the vendors of oat-bruisers understand their busi- 

 ness, and they understand the reigning feeling of the public. 

 They would rarely sell a machine if their recommendation only 

 went to show that bruised oats were better for the animal than 

 whole ones ; but they show their use is better for the man, by 

 stating that instead of giving five feeds of whole oats, bruise 

 them and you need give but four. Now, if they could prove 

 that the horse cut off with four feeds could actually do more 

 work than the one with five, this would be a savmg with a 

 vengeance, in two ways. Why, iu that case we should not 

 find a carpenter or wheelwright unemployed ; they would be 

 all making oat bruisers to satisfy public demand. But it for- 

 timately, or unfortunately, happens that bruised oats cannot 

 effect miracles ; for I roundly assert that four quarterns of 

 bruised oata will not produce the same nutriment as five given 

 whole ; that is, if the five are properly given. I conceive that 

 the best oat-bruiser ever invented is the grinders of the horse. 

 Some say, and indeed with truth, that greedy horses will swal- 

 low much of their corn whole ; granted, but mix a few haud- 

 fuls of chaff with the oats, he cannot then swallow the mix- 

 ture without thoroughly and properly masticating the com- 

 pound. Greedy feeders will swallow bruised oats without 

 masticating them, as fast or faster than whole ones. I shonld 

 not give them a chance of doing either, or rather the chaff 

 would not ; for I hold it just as judicious an adjunct to bruised 

 oats as to others. I have heard people say, " A horse 

 swallowing bruised oats does not signify; he gets the benefit of 

 the meal." I should beg to observe, in reply to such opinion, 

 that a horse has not the reputed stomach of the ostrich ; he 

 caunot digest his shoes, nor can he oats merely bruised. If 

 ground to meal it would be a different affair ; but an oat does 

 not remain long enough in the stomach of the horse to as it 

 were dissolve, unless first formed into meal by the grinders of 

 the animal, and properly saturated with saliva. I consider 

 bruised oats, on the whole, as good enough, if you prevent 

 waste, aud bruise them at home ; for I hold a sack of oats sent 

 out for this purpose does not always come home as immaculate 

 as it went out. It is surely enough, if bruised oats convey 

 more nourishment than whole ones ; but do not cheat your 

 horse in measure, aud thereby cheat yourself by fancying all 

 people say of bruised oats as fact. Let me feed my horse as I 

 like on five quarterns of whole oats, and you give yours four 

 quarterns of bruised ones, and give them both similar work; I 

 think I can prophesy which at the end of three mouths will be 

 in the best condition, to a far greater certainty than any man 

 can prophesy who will win the Derby, much more the Legerg 

 — Harry Hieover, in Field. 



