LIVE STOCK. 405 



" very small" quantity of salt. They think it causes horses to 

 " urinate too freely. They find horses do not eat so much when 

 " worked too hard. The large horses eat more than the small 

 "ones. Prefer a horse of one thousand to one thousand one hun- 

 " dred pounds weight. If too small, they get poor, and cannot 

 " draw a stage ; if too large, they ruin their feet, and their shoul- 

 "ders grow stiff and shrink. The principal objection to large 

 " horses, is not so much the increased amount of food required, 

 " as the fact that they are soon used up by wear. They would pre- 

 " fer for feed, a mixture of half corn and half oats, if it were not 

 " more expensive. Horses do not keep fat so well on oats alone, 

 " if at hard labor, as on corn-meal, or a mixture of the two. 



" Straw is the best for bedding. If salt hay is used, horses eat 

 " it, as not more than a bag of two hundred pounds of salt is used 

 " in three months. Glaubers-salt is allowed occasionally as a laxa- 

 "tive in the spring of the year, and the animals eat it voraciously. 

 " If corn is too new, it is mixed with an equal weight of rye-bran, 

 " which prevents scouring. Jersey yellow corn is best, and horses 

 " like it best. The hay is all cut, mixed with meal, and fed moist. 

 " No difference is made between day and night work. The travel 

 "is continuous, except in warm weather, when it is sometimes 

 " divided, and an interval of rest allowed. In cold weather the 

 " horses are watered four times a day in the stable, and not at all 

 " on the road. In warm weather, four times a day in the stables, 

 "and are allowed a sip on the middle of the route. 



" The amount that the company exact from each horse is all that 

 " he can do. In the worst of traveling they fed four hundred and 

 " fifty bags per week of meal, of one hundred pounds each. They 

 " now feed four hundred. The horses are not allowed to drink 

 "when warm'; if allowed to do so, it founders them. In warm 

 " weather a bed of sawdust is prepared for them to roll in. 

 " Number of horses, three hundred and thirty-five. Speed varies, 

 " but is about four miles an hour. Horses eat more in cold 

 " weather than in warm, but the difference cannot be exactly 

 " determined." 



Proper stabling and grooming are hardly less important to the 



