Investigations Concerning the Horse. 289 



The pulling power of a draft animal is said to be, as a rule, 

 about one-fifth its weight. Its usual effort, in the case of the 

 horse at least, is seldom in excess of one-tenth, or about one-half 

 the maximum. One hundred pounds is a common pull for the 

 average horse in draft vehicles. 



In racing the requirement of speed reduces the work performed 

 ( carrying the rider) to the smallest amount possible. Law writes : l 

 " When it is considered that an ounce of additional loading to 

 the same horse may make the difference of a yard or more in half 

 a mile of running, it will be seen how greatly the weight borne 

 may affect the issue in the case of horses of equal powers. " 



451. Investigations by Muentz. Miintz 2 determined the digesti- 

 bility of a large number of feeding stuffs fcr horses at rest receiv- 

 ing only one kind of feed at a time. The digestion coefficients 

 for the total organic matter were: Corn, 94.5 per cent; barley, 

 84.5 per cent.; beans, 84.5 per cent.; oats, 75.1 percent.; wheat 

 bran, 93.3 per cent.; meadow hay, 43.3 to 61.0 per cent.; wheat 

 straw, 49.4 per cent. ; carrots, 94.6 per cent. Corn and bran thus 

 appear to be the most digestible of the common horse feeds. (175) 

 The digestibility attributed to wheat straw is higher than that 

 calculated from Wolffs experiments, in which it was fed in con- 

 nection with other feeds of known digestibility. Twenty- one per 

 cent, of the organic matter was calculated as digestible in WolfFs 

 experiments made with three lots of straw in six single trials. 3 



In Miintz's experiments, 33 pounds of straw were consumed 

 daily by the horse during the last month, supplying 13 pounds of 

 digestible matter, yet the horse died from exhaustion; the ration 

 in fact supplied only .157 pounds of digestible protein, or about 

 one-third of the quantity necessary for maintenance. 



452. Water drank by the horse. The amount of water drank 

 by the horse varies with the character of the feed, as shown in the 

 researches of the various experiments. It is smallest when the 

 diet is largely ma,de up of concentrates and largest when roughage 

 only is given. "With the mixed diet employed for the Paris cab 

 horse the average proportion of water to dry matter was 2.1 : 1 



1 Breeds of the Domestic Animals of the British Isles. 

 * Warington, London Live Stock Journal, 1894, pp. 9, 49. 

 Dietrich and Konig, Futterm., Vol. II, p. 1097. 

 19 



