166 



Mashed and cut, may stand advantageously as the substitute for a feed, 

 of corn. Pease or oats in the straw, cut fresh from the stack, as hay, 

 are excellent food and highly nutritious. 



Draught Horses require to be filled with considerable quantities of 

 hay, and to have their racks well replenished at night, being the time 

 of their leisure for feeding; but the case is otherwise with saddle-horses, . 

 which are rendered pursive and unfit for action, bj'^ being gorged with, 

 hay, more especially Avhilst at leisure and confined to the stable, when 

 this article should be dispensed to them, with a light hand and in small 

 quantities well shook; nor should they ever be suffered to stand to the 

 full rack, eating merely to pass away the time, it being far more bene- 

 ficial, at least less injurious to them, to be nibbling their litter, of the 

 fanciful ill-consequences of which, some of the grooms have such a 

 customary dread. I shall make a single remark on the miserable, 

 harsh and sapless garbage on which farm Horses, in some places, are 

 stuffed and blown out. Where from poverty this cannot be avoided, it 

 is but necessary evil, otherwise it is pure deception in the guise of 

 economy; for exclusive of the insalubrity of such food, and its tendenc5^ 

 to produce obstruction, broken wind, grease fi^om poverty of the blood, 

 blindness and a train of kindred maladies, the cattle soon decline to 

 half their proper strength and utility, and hasten to a premature old 

 age. I knoAv not how much the rubbish here alluded to, may be im- 

 proved by boiling and continental cooker}^ but I am convinced, that 

 no method of dressing can impart to sapless haulm, that power of 

 nutrition which nature has denied it. 



A preposterous notion had, some how or other, crept into the heads of 

 the old grooms, that water was a kind of necessary evil to the Horse 

 and they plumed themselves upon allowing him as little as possible. 

 Indeed all cattle living abroad, upon green and succulent food, can 

 very well dispense with any great quantity of water, but to Horses 

 kept in the stable, upon dry and husky food, a regular and ample supply 

 of soft water, is particularly necessary, for the purpose of dilution, 

 the Avant of which has doubtless often contributed to obstruction, form- 

 ing the sloAvly operating and unsuspected cause of those cholics which 

 5=^3 often prove fatal. The Horse should be regularly Avatered twice a 



day. 



