CORN-FED HORSES. 235 



can pick up. It is a great mistake to suppose that 

 grass-fed animals are too soft for hard work. The 

 wild horse, which has often splendid physique and 

 endurance, has never had anything but grass, which is 

 the natural food of horses not corn. 



At the same time, we do not for a moment deny 

 the value of corn for horses worked like a London 

 'bus horse, or for carriage work of any kind, where 

 most of the work is trotting. If corn could be picked 

 up in the field like grass, of course we would always 

 be glad to get it for our horses. But this cannot be. 

 Again, the work to be done by the animals used by 

 travellers and hunters, is quite different to that for 

 which horses are mostly wanted at home. 



In a wild country, when the party are accompanied by 

 baggage animals, as is generally the case, all travelling 

 is done at foot's pace the ground is too rough, and 

 the distances too great, to admit of "carrying on," 

 and hurrying the beasts beyond their natural pace; 

 the traveller who does so would soon find out his 

 mistake. This constant steady work, day after day, 

 does keep the animals, and the men also, in a thor- 

 oughly sound, hard condition; and on an emergency 

 distances can be, and have been, accomplished by 

 grass-fed frontier horses and cattle, which put all our 

 preconceived notions of what a horse can do to the 

 blush. Indians for instance flying with stolen horses 

 and other plunder, from the pursuit of enraged whites, 

 or before the advance of a military force, have fre- 

 quently been known to perform distances with grass-fed 

 animals which would seem to be altogether incredible 

 in point of time and speed. These things show there- 

 fore that such animals, upon any sudden emergency, 



