Food. 343 



To all Horses that labour hard, and especially to all such as stand, 

 occasionally, exposed to the elements, witliout motion for hours, 

 as is the case with hackney Coach-Horses in great cities, the being' 

 fed with warm cooked provender at nij^ht, must prove highly advan- 

 tageous, for various reasons which have been already insisted upon. 



Nor can I readily persuade myself, that this method of feeding*, 

 need, by any means, to be confined to the larger and coarser kinds of 

 Horses, which perform slow labour; as several well authenticated 

 facts have come to my knowledge, which seem to render it probable 

 that it would be found to answer for mail and stage-coach horses, 

 notwithstanding the rapidity with which they perform their work. 



For we must recollect that it is not so much the rapidity, as the 

 intensity and continuance of muscular action, which exhausts animals ; 

 and as heavy Horses are found to endure slow labour, which, alone, 

 their structure fits thera for performing, and are observed to keep 

 themselves in high condition, upon a sort of food, heretofore con- 

 sidered both unnatural and improper for them, why may not this 

 same food enable the lighter kinds of Horses, to go through that 

 sort of labour, which their make qualifies them foj the pef^ 

 formanceof? ' ""■''■' '' 



But this is a point, which I will not insist upon too strongly^ 

 as my facts are too limited to enable me to pronounce upon it 

 decidedly ; and I am also well aware of the full amount of popular 

 prejudice, which clings to the minds even of the most liberal, on this 

 subject. As 1 conceive it, however, to be one of immense impor- 

 tance to the community, 1 think it ought not to be prejudged without a 

 full and fair trial; and, in this case, the change from the ordinary 

 diet of the aniojals, should be made in a slow and gradual m^nfif. 



