HORSES. 37 



gas-emitting style of accommodation which you will 

 find to prevail extensively among small farmers, as 

 once it did, to their ceaseless loss, among the cab 

 proprietors of London. 



Certain it is that many first-rate farmers keep 

 their teams in an open yard, with sheds around, 

 taking them in only during the day to feed. They 

 will tell you that consequently their horses never 

 suffer from cold, or grease ; still, I question whether 

 it be not cheaper in the end to have them housed 

 during the winter, as there is not then the same 

 exhaustion of animal heat ; just as you will see a 

 London butcher's gas-pipe flaring away at railway 

 pace in the open air, and at an infinitely greater cost 

 than the sheltered flame in the adjoining tradesman's 

 window. 



The horses of the Turkish grandee have a little 

 hay given them during the day, and in the evening 

 a sloppy feed of peas boiled with butter and sugar. 

 Ordinarily in Turkey the horses live on barley, 

 chopped up, straw and all. In Iceland the horse 

 has frequently to put up with dried fish ; but the 

 wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and they manage 

 to get on so kept. 



Their corn and hay should be always of the best 

 quality ; it will go infinitely further and show better 

 results than double the quantity of inferior stuff, 

 which distends the bellies without yielding a fair 

 proportion of nourishment in return, produces colic, 

 and is wasted under foot alarmingly. A mess of 

 steamed swedes, or potatoes, is a grand help, if 

 attainable. Mow-burnt hay is the pest for horses, 



