114 THE POCKET AND THE STUD. 



men, who were in other far less material points 

 careful of their horses, careless, in an extraordinary 

 degree, 4n this most essential one, namely, the 

 quality of their hay. Nothing should induce me 

 to permit a horse to eat a pound of bad hay, 

 or, for a continuance, hay that is not of the 

 sweetest and primest quality. It is the first thing 

 I look at on going to an inn, or indeed to a 

 friend's house, if I have a horse with me. I have 

 frequently in the former case, if the hay was bad, 

 had my horse racked up with a little sweet straw, 

 and made him amends by adding a proper quan- 

 tity of bran and beans to his allowance of oats at 

 night. 



I have been at friends' houses who grew their 

 own hay, and on remarking it was not quite the 

 thing, have been told, " No, it got a little wet in 

 making," or, " it heated and moulded a little in 

 the rick," and this by men who kept good horses. 

 So, because they grew it, it seemed their horses 

 must eat it. I would have sold it at twenty 

 shillings a ton, and bought other, rather than a 

 horse of mine should have touched it. 



To bring the effect of bad hay still more strongly 

 before the reader, I will again mention the gentle- 

 man's grey horse before alluded to as having so 

 fallen out of condition. On seeing this falling off, 

 the first thing I did was to look at the hay. I 

 found it not only bad, but literally offensive in 



