150 FOOD. 



Hay is most in perfection when it is about a year old. The 

 horse, perhaps, would prefer it earlier, but it is then neither so 

 wholesome nor so nutritive, and often has a purgative quality. 

 When it is about a year old, it retains, or should retain, some- 

 what of its green color, its agreeable smell, and its pleasant 

 taste. It has undergone the slow process of fermentation, by 

 which the sugar which it contains is developed, and its nutritive 

 quality is fully exercised. Old hay becomes dry and tasteless, 

 and innutritive and unwholesome. After the grass is cut, and 

 the hay stacked, a slight degree of fermentation takes place in 

 it. This is necessary for the development of the saccharine 

 principle ; but it occasionally proceeds too far, and the hay be- 

 comes mow-burnt, in which state it is injurious, or even poison- 

 ous. The horse soon shows the effect which it has upon him» 

 He has diabetes to a considerable degree ; he becomes, hide- 

 bound ; his strength is wasted ; his thirst is excessive ; and he 

 is almost worthless. 



Where the system of manger-feeding is not adopted, or where 

 hay is still allowed at night, and chaff and grain in the day, 

 there is no error into which the farmer is so apt to fall as to 

 give an undue quantity, and that generally of the worst kind. 

 The pernicious results of this practice have been already men- 

 tioned in the commencement of this head, and the practice can- 

 not be too strongly reprobated. 



It is a good practice to sprinkle the hay with water in which 

 salt has been dissolved. It is evidently more palatable to the 

 animal who will leave the best unsalted hay for that of an infe- 

 rior quality which has been moistened with brine ; and there 

 can be no doubt that the salting materially assists the process 

 of digestion. The preferable way of salting hay is to sprinkle 



