FORAGE. 63 



excoriated mucous surfaces, and has a marked effect in improving the 

 horse's coat. It may be given boiled either in the form of a mash with 

 the addition of bran, or may be mixed with the oats, or given in the form 

 of gruel. 



98Z. Boiled foods. 



Boiled foods fatten, but do not give strength and firmness to the 

 muscles. They are, therefore, unsuitable for saddle or carriage horses, 

 though perhaps they may answer for animals in slow work. Even in 

 these, however, they are apt to produce colic, indigestion, and sometimes 

 rupture, probably from the facility with which this description of food 

 may be bolted without due mastication. 



98m. Straw. 



Straw must be either wheaten, oaten, or rye, and should be clean, dry, 

 and not much broken in the thrashing. Steam-thrashed straw is inferior 

 to that thrashed by manual labour, inasmuch as it is more broken. 



Wheaten is generally preferred to oaten straw, and certainly looks 

 nicer in the stable ; but there is no real objection to the latter, except 

 that, when new, horses are apt to eat it. This, however, may be pre- 

 vented by a proper arrangement of the bedding. Rye straw is very good, 

 but in most localities its cost is a bar to its use. 



Barley straw is inadmissible. It is apt to induce disease of the skin. 



9Sn. Artificial foods. 



All food to be useful must supply the special nutrient materials re- 

 quired by the particular animal. For most horses the ordinary articles 

 of food, namely, hay and corn, answer best. Some animals, however, 

 have delicate* digestions, others are troubled with want of appetite. 

 Stomachics mixed with the food of the one may assist digestion, whilst 

 tonics may be useful to the latter. Again, in animals, as in men, it some- 

 times happens that there is some want of nutrition in some part of the 

 system, which must be supplied before the animal will thrive or put on 

 flesh. A harsh coat, for instance, indicates a want of oily material in the 

 system, which may often be beneficially supplied by giving boiled linseed. 

 In other cases the special want may be of fibrinous material in the blood, 

 and then doses of iron will be useful. These instances might easily be 

 multiplied. 



After a severe debilitating illness, when the system is thoroughly ex- 

 hausted, nothing will be found to answer better than a quart of strong 

 beef soup daily, either given as a drink, if the patient will take it in that 

 way, or mixed with corn. The same recipe will, in some cases, but not in 

 all, answer in putting flesh on a horse which, though in good health, 

 remains persistently thin. 



Most of the artificial or patent foods advertised in the present day are 

 compounded of a great number of stimulating and fattening ingredients, 

 by means of some one of which the special need of the system may very 



