IX.J CORN IS APPLICABLE. 



first. Tiiey will swallow, for the first day, per- 

 liajDS, only the small corn or bits of it, that happen 

 to be broken -, but when once they have digested 

 It, they will suffer barley or any other grain, to lie 

 untouched as long as there is a single grain of 

 it within their reach. It is just the same with 

 horses, sheep, and neat cattle ; but pigs, more 

 sagacious than any of the rest, eat it greedily at 

 once, w^hether they be big or little. I have ob- 

 served, that it needs good teeth. An oldhorse 

 cannot grind it ; at least he cannot grind it well; 

 and, as people frequently purchase horses, which 

 are what they call -^ aged','* that is to say, 

 when they have lost those teeth, by which you 

 are able to judge precisely of their age, as you 

 are in the case of a sheep ; when people thus 

 purchase horses, or, rather, have them upon trial; 

 and ^vhen the horse-dealer, either from want of 

 memory, or from some other accidental cause, 

 gives you a horse as being seven years old, when 

 he jnay happen to be somewhere between eight- 

 een and twenty-five ; or, to be of any age suffi- 

 cient to have produced the loss or a failure in the 

 strength of his grinders, at a sight of which you 

 cannot very well get ; a very good way to make 

 a trial of the age, is to tender him some corn. If 

 his grinders be not sufficient for the work^ he 

 will slobber the corn out of his mouth again ; 

 but if they be good and strong, he will grind it, 

 with a sound that will do your heart good. Gay, 



