THE PURCHASE OF OATS. 399 



say, once a week \ the advantage to the horses is very great. If horses are 

 delicate, they eat them better ; if greedy, their bolting them is of less con- 

 sequence ; and with all horses they digest better and go further in point of 

 nutriment." — Charles Brindley, " The Pocket and the Stud,'^ p. 12 j. 



" It will save considerable waste to have the oats bruised in a mill ; the 

 cost of one is only five or six pounds ; the trouble of it, nothing. I was 

 never aware of the quantity of dirt and impurities to be found even in clean 

 oats till a friend recently showed me the siftings of his bruising mill ; such 

 rubbish in the stomach of a horse cannot but be most injurious ; the princi- 

 pal object, however, in bruising the corn, is to assist the mastication, and, of 

 course, the digestion. The oats frequently pass through the stomach and 

 bowels without being broken, especially in horses that are fast feeders ; I 

 think it is no exaggeration to say that three feeds of bruised oats will convey 

 as much nutriment to the animal as four that are not bruised." — Sir George 

 Stephen, " The Advetituirs of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse,''' p. i6§ 



THE PURCHASE OF OATS. 



There are many tricks resorted to whereby the samples 

 are made misleading ; thus by pouring oats very slowly into 

 the measure, they pack closely together and weigh more per 

 quart than if poured in hastily. The same deceptive effect 

 is produced by removing the down from the husks by friction, 

 which allows the grain to form in a more solid mass. 

 Again oats that have been dampened will be of apparently 

 Sfood weifrht as will those which have been mixed with a 

 small amount of sand or dirt. The simplest and surest way 

 to avoid such deceptions is not to confine the inspection to 

 a sample, but to submit the entire consignment to the various 

 tests. Another method of testing oats is to take a two-quart 

 measure full of each sample and after thoroughly sifting 

 each lot weigh them separately. Those weighing the most 

 contain proportionally more nutriment. Sir F. Fitzwygram 

 recommends the following method : 



