DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 663 



give such a knowledge to stockmen and farmers, that shall enable them to feed 

 them in such manner as to obtain the strengtli needed at once by the digestion of 

 the more concentrated articles of food, as oats or other grain, which for this 

 purpose must be retained in the horse's stomach, while the hay or other coarser 

 food may have passed on into the intestines. The horse's stomach has a capa. 

 city, generally, of only about 16 qts., while that of the ox has about 15i^ times 

 as much, or about 250 qts. But the intestines are somewhat reversed, the horse 

 having a capacity of 190 qts., or thereabouts, while the ox has only 100. And, 

 again, the ox has the advantage of a gall bladder for the retention and continu- 

 ous distribution of bile during the digestive process, while the horse has none, 

 and depends upon the saliva being properly mixed with his food by slower mas- 

 tication, the bile flowing into the intestines at once, as it is secreted. "This 

 construction," says Colvin, "of the digestive apparatus indicates that the horse 

 was formed to eat slowly and to digest continuously the more bulky and 

 innutritious food." Then, when fed on hay, it passes very rapidly through the 

 stomach into the intestine. The horse can eat but about 5 lbs. of hay in au 

 hour, which is charged, during mastication, with four times its weight of saliva. 

 Now, the stomach, to digest it well, will contain but about 10 qts., and when 

 the animal eats % of his daily ration, or 7 lbs., in 1)4 hours, at least, 2 storaach- 

 fuls of hay and saliva, one of which must have passed on into the intestines. 

 And, as observation has shown that food is passed into the intestines in the 

 order in which it is received (first come, first served), we find that if we feed a 

 horse 6 qts of oats, it, with the saliva and swelhng of the grain by mastica- 

 tion (chewing), will just fill his stomach; and then, of course, if, as soon as he 

 finishes his oats, we feed him his ration of hay, he will eat sufficient in % of an 

 hour to force the oats entirely out of the stomach into the intestines, 

 while but slightly digested. Then as it is more particularly the office or func- 

 tion — duty or natural w^ork— of the stomach to digest the nitrogenous parts of 

 the food — as oats or other grain — while it is believed the duty of the intes- 

 tines is to digest the less nitrogeneous and more bulky parts of the food, as hay, 

 etc., by the continuous pouring upon it of the bile, as above indicated (the prob- 

 able reason why a horse hits no gall bladder), and as oats contain four or five 

 times as much nitrogen or nourishment as the same bulk of hay, it stands to 

 reason that the stomach must either secrete the gastric juice five times faster 

 than usual, which is impossible, else it must retain the oats sufficiently long for 

 digestion, or otherwise very much of their strength-giving properties are lost. 

 Therefore, this knowledge says to the horseman, if you are going to feed hay, 

 give it first and let the oats be given last, so that they drive the hay into the 

 intestines, while they remain in the stomach for a more full and complete diges- 

 tion. With the large stomach capacity, and the reserve of bile in the gall-blad- 

 der to be poured out, as required with the ox, it matters not so much as to 

 which class of food may be first given; still, I think there will be less colic and 

 gaseous disturbances in either case when the hay is fed first, if it is to be given 

 at all, especially at the mid-day meal. But, as the ox is a ruminating animal 

 (chews over again), he ought to be fed dift'erently from the horse; having a 

 large stomach capacity, as above explained, he needs coarse food to fill it; hence 



