PECULIAR TO HORSES. 101 



larger amount is consumed, and parted with, in an undigested state. 

 For fattening animals, carrots are exceedingly valuable. It will bo 

 urged that carrots are not very nutritious — that may be ; still, if 

 they possess tlie property of gelatinizing the contents of the stomach 

 and bowels, they aid in the manufacture of fat out of other food, 

 which might otherwise pass out of the system. 



It is said that the milk of a cow in mid-winter, fed on carrots, is 

 equal in flavor to that supplied from clover in summer, while the 

 butter made from such milk presents a rich orange color, and does 

 not taste, as some persons suppose, of the peculiar flavor of this veg- 

 etable. Two bushels of oats and one of carrots is better food for a 

 horse than three bushels of oats without carrots, and when the ani- 

 mal is used for light work only, the quantity of carrots may be 

 increased. 



The reader must bear in mind, however, that animals, like our- 

 selves, have their peculiar idiosyncracies or susceptibilities — "what 

 is one man's food is another's poison" — and some might digest, and 

 thrive amazingly, on a given article of food, while an equal number 

 shall lose both flesh and spirits. There appears, however, to be 

 less objection to the judicious use of carrots than many other veg- 

 etables, both as regards horses and cattle. 



If the reader happen to have what is termed a "s^a7^fed horse, 

 and the same shall be the subject of heaves,'''' (sometimes a symptom 

 of indigestion, only), let them take away the fine meal and substitute 

 carrots, and, ray word for it, the horse will improve. 



ON THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE LIVER 

 OF THE HORSE — ITS DISEASES, &c. 



The liver of the horse is situated between the stomach and dia- 

 phragm, in what is known to anatomists as the epigastric and hypo- 

 chondriac regions; it is confined in this situation by means of what 

 are termed its ligaments, which are chronicled as five in number. 

 Anatomically divided, the liver is convex on its front or anterior sur- 

 face, concave on its back, or posterior, and has clefts which divide 

 it into three lobes of unequal size. 



The chief mass of the liver is made up of cells, like many other 

 parts of the body ; and these cells are placed in the vicinity of the 

 terminations of the portal veins, from whence the former derive their 

 blood. 



The liver has a covering, common to all the organs contained in 

 the cavity of the abdomen, known as the peritoneum, a beautifully 

 transparent membrane ; it plays an important function in the animal 

 economy, inasmuch as it fin-nishes the means necessary to guard 

 against friction, which would otherwise occur, to the utter ruin of 

 the contiguous parts. 



It was formerly supposed that the function of the liver was merely 

 to eliminate bile from the venous blood, and thus it received the 

 appellation puri^o — a purifying organ — but modern physiologists 

 have discovered that the blood itself is materially changed during 

 its chcalation through the vessels of the liver ; for example, the liver 



