FOOD 351 



in spring will readily eat food so prepared when they will not look at 

 corn. 



All roots should be well cleaned, and no unsound ones should be given. 



Carrots. No roots are so much esteemed for horses as carrots. They 

 are too expensive to form part of the general rations for large studs, 

 but for individual horses, with deficient appetites, and for hunters and 

 other horses doing very severe work, or passing through an attack of 

 sickness, they are most valuable. 



Most horses are very fond of them, and many fickle feeders and 

 invalids will eat carrots with relish after refusing their ordinary food. 



They should be thoroughly sound and well cleaned before being given. 



Green Food. Many consider it advantageous to give a quantity of 

 green food to stall - fed horses during the summer months, and when 

 used with judicious care it is a most agreeable and beneficial, as well 

 as an economical food. Clover, rye-grass, meadow-grass, and vetches are 

 usually employed, and whichever is used it may be given separately, 

 or be cut up and mixed with the ordinary mixed food. 



Care should be taken to secure a regular supply of the best quality, 

 otherwise hard - worked, highly - fed horses will rather deteriorate than 

 improve in condition when receiving it; but the loss of condition some- 

 times observed may be partly due to the great reduction in the corn 

 allowance that is frequently made when horses are on green food. 



In commencing its use it is advisable to begin with a small quantity 

 for the first day or two, and at all times it is necessary to be very careful 

 when the green food is very succulent and newly mown, or when it is 

 wet with dew or rain, as it is then very liable to produce flatulence and 

 purgation. 



If very succulent grass, such as is grown on water-meadows or sewage 

 land, is given to horses on hard food, many cases of " lymphangitis", or 

 "weed", are observed to occur when the green food is first used; indeed, 

 more cases of lymphangitis may be seen then than at any other time. 



Hay is generally considered an essential constituent in the food of 

 stable-fed horses. It is true, no doubt, that in certain districts, when 

 hay is short and oat -straw plentiful, many farm -horses do hard work 

 on corn and oat-straw, but these may be deemed exceptional cases, and 

 it will generally be considered that hay is a staple article of horse food. 



The general term hay embraces several varieties differing more or 

 less from one another. Thus rye-grass differs from meadow-hay, meadow 

 from clover, clover from alfalfa, and so on, but if each be good of its 

 kind their difference in feeding value is not so great as is sometimes as- 

 sumed. A curious illustration of the illusory character of local opinion 



