OF FARRIERY. 



509 



would produce costiveness, and probably 



megrims or staggers. 



PEAS. 



Peas are occasionally given. They appear 

 to be in a slight degree more nourishing than 

 beans, and not so heating. They contain 

 five hundred and seventy-four parts of nutri- 

 tive matter. For Horses of slow work they 

 may be used ; but the quantity of chaff should 

 be increased, and a few oats added. They 

 have not been found to answer with Horses of 

 quick draught. It is essential that they should 

 be crushed ; otherwise on an account of their 

 globular form, they are apt to escape from the 

 teeth, and many are swallowed whole. Ex- 

 posed to warmth and moisture in the stomach, 

 they swell very much, and may painfully and 

 injuriously distend it. 



Many Horses have died after gorging them- 

 selves with peas, and the stomach has been 

 found to have been burst by their swelling. 

 If a small phial is filled with peas, and warm 

 water poured on them, and the bottle tightly 

 corked, it will not remain many hours before 

 it bursts. 



Where the manger system of feeding is not 

 adopted, or where hay is still given at night, 

 and chaff and corn in the day, there is no 

 error into which the farmer is so apt to fall as 

 to give an undue quantity of hay, and that 

 generally of the worst kind. If the manger 

 system is good, there can be no necessity for 

 hay, or only for a small quantity of it ; but if 

 the rack is overloaded, the greedy Horse will 

 be eating all night, instead of taking liis rest ; 

 and when the time for the morning feed arrives, 

 his stomach will be already filled, and he will 

 be less capable of work, from the want of 

 sleep, and from the long-continued distention 



of the stomach rendering it impossible for the 

 food to be properly digested. 



It is a good practice to sprinkle the hay 

 with water in which salt has been dissolved. 

 It is evidently more palatable to the animal, 

 who will leave the best unsalted hay for that 

 of an inferior quality that has been moistened 

 with brine ; and there can be no doubt that 

 the salt very materially assists the process ot 

 digestion. The preferable way of salting the 

 hay would be to sprinkle it over the different 

 layers as the rick is formed. From its attrac- 

 tion for water, it would combine with that 

 excess of moisture which, in wet seasons, is 

 the cause of too rapid and violent fermentation, 

 and of the hay becoming mowburnt, or the 

 rick sometimes catching fire, and it would 

 become more incorporated with the hay. The 

 only objection to its being thus used is, that 

 the colour of the hay is not so bright ; but this 

 would be of little consequence for home con- 

 sumption. 



TARES. 



Of the value of tares, as forming a portion 

 of the late spring and summer food of the 

 stabled and agricultural Horse, there can be 

 no doubt. They are very nutritive, and they 

 act as a kind of medicine. When surfeit 

 lumps appear on the skin, and the Horse 

 begins to rub himself against the divisions of 

 the stall, and the legs swell, and the heels 

 threaten to crack, a few tares, cut up with 

 the chaff, or given instead of a portion of the 

 hay, will often afford immediate and perfect 

 relief. Ten or twelve pounds may be given 

 daily, and half that weight of hay subtracted. 

 It is an erroneous notion, that, given in mo- 

 derate quantities, they either roughen the 

 coat or lessen the capability for hard work. 

 6 N 



