356 THE HORSE. 



sliould have very little hay. The proportion should not be more than one 

 truss of hay to two of straw. Wheaten liour, boiled in water, to the thick 

 ness of starch, is given with good efiect in over purging, and especially 

 if combined with chalk and opium. 



Beans. — These form a striking illustration of the principle, that the 

 nourishing or strengthening effects of the diff'erent articles of food depend 

 more upon some peculiar property which they have, or some combination 

 which they form, than on the actual quantity of nutritive matter. Beans 

 contain but five hundred and seventy parts of nutritive matter, yet they 

 add materially to the vigour, of the horse. There are many horses that 

 «ill not stand hard work without beans being mingled with their food, and 

 these not horses whose tendency to purge it may be necessary to restrain 

 by the astringency of the bean. There is no traveller who is not aware 

 of the difference in the spirit and continuance of his horse if he allows or 

 denies him beans on his journey. They afford not merely a temporary 

 stimulus, but they may be daily used witTiout losing their power, or 

 producing exhaustion. Two pounds of beans may, with advantage, be 

 mixed with the chaff of the agricultural horse, during the winter. In 

 summer, the quantity may be lessened, or the beans altogether discontinued. 

 Beans are generally given v/hole. This is very absurd ; for the young 

 horse, who.^e teeth are strong, seldom requires them; while the old horse, 

 to whom they are in a manner necessary, is scarcely able to masticate 

 them, swallows many of. them whole which he is unable to break, and drops 

 much corn from his mouth in the ineffectual attempt to break them. 

 Beans should not be merely split, but crushed ; they will even then give 

 sufficient employment to the grinders of the animal. Some postmasters 

 use chaff with beans instead of oats. With hardly-worked horses, they 

 may possibly be allowed ; but in general cases, the beans, Avithout oats, 

 would be too binding and stimulating, and would produce costiveness, and 

 probably megrims or staggers. 



Peas are occasionally given. They appear to be in a slight degree 

 more nourishing than beans, and not so heating. They contain five hun- 

 dred and seventy-four parts of nutritive matter. For horses of slow work 

 they may be used; but the quantity of cliaff should be increased, and a 

 i'ew oats added. They have not been found to answer with horses of quick 

 draught. It is essential that they should be crushed ; otherwise, on account 

 of their globular form, they are apt to escape from the teeth, and many are 

 swallowed whole. Exposed to warmth and moisture in the stomach, they 

 swell very much, and may painfully and injuriously distend it. 



Many horses have died after gorging themselves with peas, and the 

 stomacli has been found to have been burst by their swelling. If a small 

 phial is filled with peas, and warm water poured on them, and the bottle 

 tightly corked, it will burst in a few hours. 



Herbage, green and dry, constitutes a principal p^rt of the food of the 

 horse. There are few things with regard to which the farmer is so care- 

 less as the mixture of grasses, on both his upland and meadow pasture. 

 Ilunce we find, in the same field, the ray grass, coming to perfection only 

 in a loamy soil, not fit to cut until the middle or latter part of July, and 

 yielding little aftermath; the meadow fox-tail, best cultivated in a clayey 

 soil, fit for the scythe in the beginning of June, and yielding a plentiful 

 aftermath ; the glaucous fescue grass, ready at the middle of June, and 

 rapidly deteriorating in value as its seeds ripen ; and the fertile meadow 

 grass, increasing in value until the end of July. These are circum- 

 stances, the importance of which will, at no distant period, be recog- 

 nised. In the mean time, Sinclair's account of the different grasses. 



