CHAPTEE XIX. 



FEED AND CARE OF THE HOUSE. 



492. The range of feeding stuffs for horses. At any point of 

 observation we find the ration for the horse usually composed of 

 only one or two kinds of grain and the same limited number of 

 coarse dry fodders, the feeder insisting that these are practically 

 all that can be given this animal with safety and economy. We 

 need not travel far, however, to find the list more or less changed, 

 sometimes entirely so, yet with the same claim as to superiority 

 or necessity as before. In the Northern states the almost uni- 

 versal feeds for the horse are timothy hay and oats; in the South, 

 Indian corn serves mainly for tire concentrates, with dried corn 

 leaves for roughage. On the Pacific coast, crushed barley is the 

 common grain, while the hay comes from the wild oat, the barley 

 or wheat plant. Passing to other countries, we find an interest- 

 ing array of articles in the dietary of the horse, though still no 

 large number is in use in any one locality. In London 1 we 

 read: "In some sterile countries, horses are forced to subsist on 

 dried fish, and even vegetable mould; in Arabia, on milk, flesh 

 balls, eggs, broth, etc. In Persia, barley is a common food for 

 good horses. In some parts of India, salt, pepper and other spices 

 are made up into balls, as big as billiard balls, with flour and 

 butter, and thrust down the animal's throat. . . . Meat broth 

 (especially sheep's head) is also given to horses. . , In 

 Bengal, a vetch, something like the tare, is used. On the western 

 side of India, a sort of pigeon pea, called gram, is the usual foodj 

 with grass in the season, and hay all the year. Indian corn or 

 rice is, I think, seldom if ever given to horses in India as ordinary 

 food. In the West Indies they are fed on maize, Guinea corn, 

 and sugar-cane tops; and, in some instances, on the sugar itself, in 



1 Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, 1866: Article, Feeding of Horses. 



