PREPARING FOODS FOR FEEDING 357 



is simply indispensable when these are fed to horses. The 

 necessity for grinding grain for horses is much greater 

 when they are hard at work than when idle. 



When grains are fed in combination, which is a com- 

 mon way of feeding them, they are usually ground. 

 This is true of them whether fed in the form of meal 

 directly or in admixture with cut fodders. The ad- 

 vantage from grinding them is based, first, on the 

 necessity for grinding some of them ; second, on the greater 

 ease with which some of them are ground when blended 

 before grinding, and third, on the more complete character 

 of the mastication, when thus prepared. Some grains, as 

 intimated above, must be ground under all conditions of 

 feeding. Flax is much more easily ground with other 

 grains than alone and especially when the mixture contains 

 just enough of the same for ordinary uses and no more. 

 Oats are ground more easily when blended with corn. The 

 same is true of other mixtures. Especially is the mastica- 

 tion more perfect when the meal is mixed with cut fodders, 

 because of the re-grinding given during the rumination 

 that follows. 



No kind of grain containing the seeds of nox- 

 ious weeds should be fed unground. If so fed, they 

 are much liable to escape mastication because of their 

 small size, and to escape digestion because of their 

 hard and oily character, hence, when carried to the fields, 

 they grow, and thus infest the land. Even when weed 

 seeds are fed to sheep, they ought to be ground, as many of 

 them will fall amid the litter while the sheep are feeding up- 

 on the grain. Grinding is usually not more costly than 

 complete winnowing, and it is much safer. 



The crushing of grain, accomplished by passing it be- 

 tween heavy rollers, in preference to grinding, has some ad- 

 vocates. It calls for less power than to grind the grain, 

 and in the case of grains that are pasty in character, and li- 

 able to adhere to the gums in mastication, as wheat, and to 

 a less extent barley, it is preferable to crush than to grind 



