FOOD AND WATER. 227 
intended for fast’ work, but for road work it is worth trying whenever oats 
are proportionably dear. According to the following report, contained in 
the Transactions of the American Institute for 1855, and made to it by a 
member of the Farming Committee, from fourteen to twenty pounds of 
Tndian meal is sufficient for the daily ration of the omnibus horses of New 
York ; whereas ours eat on the average from forty to sixty pounds of 
beans and oats. In the report the rate of travelling is said to be four 
miles per hour, but this must surely be a mistake, as no omnibus goes at 
so slow arate. The rations seem extremely small, the highest being only 
thirty-four pounds of hay and corn together, which would in this country 
be quite inadequate for an omnibus horse, and thus the presumption is 
raised, that Indian corn is well suited to the digestive organs of the 
American horse, and most probably to our own, as there is little difference 
between the two breeds. 
“REPORT ON THE MANAGEMENT OF OMNIBUS HORSES IN 
NEW YORK. 
3 > s loon 
= Pa aid B 4 Bo 
Bee SES ee Bal See 
STAGE LINES. 3 Ss, joie eo. (eae as 
iS cI i 3 = se 
° 3° 3g te = ZA g3a0 
=) a g ga g Bisa 
A = 5 5 5 S58 
a a am a a ae 
Red Bird Stage Line . . . . .] 116 17 14 18 13 34 
Spring Street ditto. . .... 105 21 14 20 4 37 
Seventh Avenue ditto . . . .| 227 22 10 183} 1 25 
: : Horses . ale 17 10 14 2 —— 
Sixth ARIGEE Railroad Binal arena OTT 17 10 7 2 = 
New York Consolidated Stage Co. | 335 213 8 17 2:9 2 
“Tt is the object of the stage proprietors to get all the work out of 
their teams possible, without injury to the animals. Where the routes 
are shorter, the horses consequently make more trips, so that the different 
amounts and proportions of food consumed are not so apparent when the 
comparison is made between the different lines, as when it is made also 
with the railroad and livery horses, The stage horses consume most, and 
the livery horses least, 
“The stage horses are fed on cut hay and corn meal wet, and mixed in 
the proportion of about one pound of hay to two pounds of meal, a ratio 
adopted rather for mechanical than physiological reasons, as this is all 
the meal that can be made to adhere to the hay. The animals eat this 
mixture from a deep manger. The New York Consolidated Stage Company 
use a very small quantity of salt. They think it causes horses to urinate 
soo freely. They find horses do not eat so much when worked too hard. 
The large horses eat more than the small ones. Prefer a horse of 1,000 
to 1,100 pounds’ weight. If too small, they get poor, and cannot draw a 
stage; if too large, they ruin their feet, and their shoulders grow stiff and 
shrink, ‘The principal objection to large horses is not so much the in- 
creased amount of food required, as the fact that they are soon used up by 
- wear, They would prefer for feed a mixture of half corn and half oats, if 
Q2 
