THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FEEDING. 235 
full of decomposing vegetable matter. I have known the health of a 
whole stable full of horses seriously injured by using rain water, as was 
proved by the fact that its filtration through charcoal, gravel, and sand 
soon restored the animals to a fair state of health, without any alteration 
in their solid food or work. -On the other hand, very hard water disagrees 
almost to an equal extent, often producing the state of the skin known 
as “hide-bound,” and sometimes affecting the bowels in the form of 
serious diarrhoea. But in course of time most sound horses become 
accustomed to hard water, and then a change to that which is soft must 
be carefully avoided whenever work is to be demanded of them. Thus 
in sending hunters or harness-horses used in fast work from home, when 
they have been accustomed to either kind of water, it often happens that 
their health is upset, and this is quite as likely to occur when the change is 
from hard to soft, as from soft to hard water. Trainers of valuable racehorses 
are so aware of this fact, that irrespective of the risk of poisoning, which 
they thereby avoid, they take water with them, knowing the injurious 
effects likely to be produced by a sudden change. Hard water, if it con- 
tains large quantities of carbonate of lime, may be made to deposit it to 
some extent by boiling, but the sulphate of lime (or gypsum), which is 
a far more common ingredient, is as soluble in hot water as in cold. 
Evaporation by boiling causes the deposit of a large quantity of it on the 
sides of the vessel used to contain the water, but the fluid remaining 
still holds as much gypsum per gallon, and is not therefore benefited in 
the slightest degree. 
THE PROPER TEMPERATURE OF THE WATER given in the stable is a 
matter of serious importance, and the effect of a bucketful of cold water 
to a horse just come in from his work is very serious. Even in a state oi 
rest cold water will often produce cramp or colic, so that careful grooms 
never give it by any chance without warming it, either by the addition of 
a little hot water, called “chilling” it, or by letting it stand for some 
hours in the stable or saddle-room. If the former method is adopted, it 
should not be made to feel actually warm, for in that state it nauseates 
a delicate feeder, but it should merely have the chill taken off, so that in 
dipping the hand into it, no sensation of cold is produced. 
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FEEDING. 
In apaptine the quantity and quality of horse-keep to the wants of 
each horse, regard must be paid jist of ali to the small size of this 
animal’s stomach, which affects all alike ; secondly, to the work for which 
he is designed ; and thirdly, to the peculiar constitution of each individual. 
From the first of these causes the horse must never be allowed to fast for 
any long period if it can possibly be avoided, it being found from expe- 
rience that at the end of four hours his stomach is empty, and the whole 
frame becomes exhausted, while the appetite is frequently so impaired it 
he is kept fasting for a longer period that when food is presented to him 
it will not be taken. Previously to the introduction of railroads harness- 
horses were often required to do long distances in the day, and it was 
found that if the whole journey must be performed without stopping to 
bait, it exhausted the horse less to increase the pace up to nine or ten 
miles an hour than to dawdle over the ground on an empty stomach. If 
two horses are driven or ridden fifty or sixty miles under similar condi- 
tions as to the weight they have to draw or carry, and the one is taken at 
the rate of six miles an hour which will keep him fasting from eight and 
