HYGIENE, UNSOUNDNESS, DISEASE. 247 



farm or anywhere else. Take the cobs out at 

 each feed and burn them. They make good in 

 the cook-stove or heater. Similarly stems and 

 trash should always be cleaned out of the hay 

 rack. A horse noses over his roughage quite 

 a good bit. What he leaves should be taken 

 away from his head at least. Mashes fed in the 

 feedbox leave a lot of dampness behind them 

 and as a consequence the box gets sour, which 

 is equivalent to saying that germs are prop- 

 agating apace. Iron mangers are the best, but 

 expensive. If the feedboxes are of wood, feed 

 mashes in galvanized iron buckets. Keep the 

 feedboxes dry and let the sunlight get to them 

 if possible, any way much light. 



Pine makes most unsatisfactory stable fit- 

 tings. Beech wood, owing to its close and 

 cranky grain, is by far the best when it is avail- 

 able. Horses love to gnaw pine, and once they 

 get into the habit, no matter what is originally 

 the cause, they are hard to stop. Usually, how- 

 ever, horses get to chewing mangers and board 

 fences because they are not salted or fed 

 enough. This is not always true, but it most 

 generally is. Often, too, horses undergoing the 

 troubles of dentition will seek surcease from 

 troubling in gnawing wood. The beech wood 

 fittings, stripped with strap iron, or better still 

 iron fittings, are the best remedy, though after 

 all most wooden stalls get chewed more or less 

 with the lapse of time and many changes of 

 tenants. 



