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and your rule of feeding is, by that fact, approved. 

 This, also, should be considered, — that nothing is so 

 bad as to underfeed the colt ; and according to my 

 ideas and observation, taking the land through, ten 

 colts suffer from want of needed food to one that 

 suffers from overplus of it. The fact is, nothing is 

 more erroneous than the opinion that prevails among 

 farmers and the smaller breeders ; viz., that it makes 

 little difference what a colt has to eat the first two 

 years of his life, or Avhether he has much to eat at 

 all. The truth is, that the first two years of his life 

 decide the colt's entire future. Then it is that the 

 length of his bones, the stomachic and intestinal de- 

 velopment, the quality of the skin and coat, and the 

 constitutional powers and vigor, are decided. Feed 

 your colt well the first two years of his life, and, com- 

 paratively speaking, you cannot spoil him afterwards: 

 starve him during these years, and you cannot, on the 

 other hand, ever make the lack thereby caused good. 

 New England is, to-day, full of horses that have been 

 ruined in this way. The moment you put your eyes 

 upon them, you know that they were starved in youth. 

 They are under-sized or ill-proportioned, bigger at one 

 end than at the other, ungainly and weak. These are 

 the animals that were compelled to "pick up their 

 living " in the barn-yard with the cows and sheep, and 

 came out each spring lousy and hide-bound. I know 

 that a great hue and cry has been raised about "the 

 forcing-system," and much said against giving oats and 



