F A R M E R S' REGISTER, 



475 



Bad oafs.— Some oats are iiirht, containing liliie 

 nuirimeiit in proporliori to their buli< ; some con- 

 tain much (lust ami chaff, small slonef!, ami earih; 

 these can hardly be called good oais, \'et there are 

 others which are much worse. Ligiii, husky, and 

 ill-cleaned oats may be sweet and wholesome; if 

 they do liitle good they do no harm, but some oats 

 are positively injurious lo the horse. They may 

 please the eye toleri'.bly well, but they have a bad 

 smell and a biuer disagreeable tasie. Hoises do 

 nol like them. Alier the first day or two they 

 begin to refuse them. That which they eat pro- 

 duces diabetes, a disease which goes under many 

 names. Tiie most common are staling-evil and 

 jaw-piss. I do nol know how the oais obtain this 

 diuretic property ; man}-, as I have said, attribute 

 it to kiln-drying, many to the oats having been 

 heated, undergone a little li^rmentation in the 

 stack or in the granary, and a (ew ascribe it to the 

 oats being ill harvested, musty, or half-rotten before 

 they are got offthe field. Oats may be frost-bitten, 

 (iamaged by insects, or injured in various other 

 ways, but it seems yet uncertain what condition 

 they are in when they produce diabetes ; or what 

 makes them so strongly diuretic. There ia no 

 doubt but heated oats will produce diabetes ; but 

 whether any oiher alteration in the oats will have 

 the same etiect I do not know. Whatever be the 

 cause, the oats must be changed as soon as it is 

 discovered that tliey produce 



Diabetes. — It is the same disease as that which 

 arises from the use ofmowb'irnt hay. The horses 

 urinate ol'ten ; the urine is quite colorless, and it is 

 discharged in immense quantities. The horse 

 would drink lor ever, and the water is hardly down 

 his throat nil it is thrown among his feet in the 

 Ibrm of urine. In a day or two his coat stares, he 

 refuses to leed, loses flesh, and becomes excessively 

 weak. He may lor a time continue at work, but, 

 if he catch cold, and remain at work while he has 

 both the cold and diabetes upon him he often be- 

 comes glandered. 



The horses may not be all alike. In a large 

 stud some are always more affected by these bad 

 oats than others. The worst must go out of work 

 for a while, and some others must be sptired as 

 much as possible, while a few may continue at 

 their usual employment. The oats must be 

 changed. Give plenty of beans, some barley, and 

 good hay. Let each horse have a lump of rock 

 salt, and a piece ofchalk in his mantxer. Put some 

 clay and bean-meal in the water. (Carrots, whins, 

 or grass may be <£iven with benefit. Rut by 

 changing the oats, and diminishing the work, the 

 disease will generally disappear. If all these 

 means ftiil, medicine must be tried. A veterinarian 

 will furnisb that of the proper kind. But nothing 

 will arrest the disease permanently unless the oats 

 be changed. If not very bad, they may do for 

 horses in easy work. But while a horse has dia- 

 betes, he cannot maintain his condition for full 

 work. He would lose flesh though he stood up to 

 the knees in corn. 



There is a kind of diabetes which does not pro- 

 ceed from bad lijod. It is accompanied with a 

 good deal of lever, and requires ditlerent treatment; 

 it may be suspected when the Ibod has not been 

 changed ; but the eye is red, and the mouth hot, 

 and the horse is dull for adayo^rtwo before the 

 staling-evil is upon him. 



Preparation of oa/s.— Most frequently oats are 



1 given raw and whole. But occasionally they are 



! bruised, or coarsely ground. Sometimes they are 



! boiled, and someinnes germinated. There is no 



objection to bruising but the cost ; grinding is 



I never useful, and sometimes it is improper; boil- 



! ing does not seem to improve oats, and, after the 



first week, high-led fiorses preler them raw ; 



germination is rarely practised, and only lor sick 



liorses. In Lincolnshire oats are nnalted in salt 



water, and given, lor three weeks or a month In 



spring. 



Oats are sometimes given in the straw, either 

 cut or uncut. The cost of thrashing is saved, but 

 that is no great gain. It cannot be known how 

 much the horse gets. One may be cheated alto- 

 gether out of a meal and another may be surfeited. 

 There is always some waste, for the horse must 

 be getting very little corn if he eats all the straw 

 he gets along with it, and, if he get more, some of 

 the corn is left in the straw. 



The daily allowance of oats is very variable. 

 Hunters and racers receive almost as much as they 

 will eat during the season of work. The quantity 

 lor those horses varies from twelve to sixteen 

 pounds per day. Stage and mail-horses get about 

 the same allowance. Some will not consume 

 above fourteen pounds, others will manage nearly 

 eighteen. In most stables some other corn is 

 used. For every pound of barley or beans that 

 may be given, rather more than an equal weight 

 I is taken ofTthe ordinary allowance of oats. Sad- 

 Id le- horses receive about twelve pounds of oats. 

 j cart-horses from ten So fourteen. Those emploved 

 I on the fiirm get from four to twelve pounds. The 

 I ordinary feeding measure in Scotland, termed a 

 lippy, holds from three to four pounds of heavy 

 oats. 



Substitutes for oats have been frequently sought. 

 Many experiments have been made to ascertain 

 how far their use might be dispensed with. Roots 

 and bread have both been tried, and the results 

 have shown that horsesof moderate work, or even 

 laborious work at a slow pace, can be kept in 

 good condition on carrots or potatoes, with some 

 ibdder and no corn. The bread has been made 

 from corn, but it docs not seem to have been pro- 

 ductive of any economy. Barley, beans, peas, and 

 wheat are partial substitutes for oats. They may 

 form a large portion of the corn ; and in Spain bar- 

 ley forms the whole of it. But in this country oats 

 are in general as cheap as any of the other kinds 

 of corn. It has been alletred that oats contain 

 some aromatic, invigorating property, not pos- 

 sessed by other articles ; and it does appear that 

 horses li?,(l on roots, to the exclusion of corn, are 

 not so gay as corn-led horses. But whetlier oat.^, 

 in equal weight, give the horse more animation 

 than other liinds of corn, is not known with 

 certainty, although common opinion is in their 

 favor. 



Corn dust is a dirty, brown useless-like pow- 

 der, removed from the oat in converting it into 

 meal. It is sometimes mixed with the boiled food 

 [t does not appear to contain any nutriment ; and 

 it is blamed lor producing halls in the bowels and 

 obstructing them. 



Oat meal seeds. — The husk of the oat as it ia 

 silled li-om the meal, is sometimes given to horses. 

 This stuff" is termed seeds. It always contains a 

 little meal; but is often adulterated by adding what 

 are called the shceling seeds, the husk without 



