314 Food. 



with very young, and very old Horses, and also with such as 

 are voracious feeders. 



But, lest it may be objected to me that my arguments on this head 

 proceed chiefly upon mere assumption, a ground of reasoning which 

 I have so frequently reprobated, and as facts are better than theory, 

 let us see how they bear upon the case under our consideration. 



And for this purpose I shall transcribe a very interesting commu- 

 nication sent to J. C. Curwen Esq. M. P. by an intelligent Officer 

 who had served long in India, and published by him in his very excel- 

 lent Tract on the Economy of feeding stock. 



" During the last seven years of my residence in India, I served with 

 a corps of native cavalry, and had frequent opportunities of observ- 

 ing the mode usually adopted by the natives of Hindoostan in their 

 management of that useful and beautiful animal, the Horse, as res- 

 pects his food and shoeing ; in this latter part, viz. shoeing, the 

 practice for many ages, both as to the shoe and nail, is that recom- 

 mended by Professor Cokman, in his late elegant and useful work 

 ©n that subject. Horses are never used in agriculture, and those 

 Used in the cavalry, or for pleasure, are constantly housed, and with 

 a double cellar and hind picquet. Their food is either a large species 

 of pulse, called, in Hindoostan, Channa, which is bruised and 

 steeped for a. few hours ; or a smaller kind of pulse, called Colli ; 

 this is boiled, reduced to a paste, and given in balls ; there is also a 

 third mode sometimes practised, which is equal parts of channa and 

 barley, ground to a coarse flour, and given in balls; the quantity 

 from ten to twelve pounds weight, in the twenty four hours, with from 

 , twenty Ave to thirty pounds of hay. It is to be observed, the horses 

 of Hindoostan are generally under the size of the English saddle 



