FED KY W3:i<illT OK MEASURE. 41 



without water or food, or of a sudden cliano-e of food to 

 which tlie liorses tubes have had no time to adjust themselves. 

 The man who has lived for years on wliite bread, meat, eggs, tea, 

 and brandy, is at once upset if put upon fruit, cabbage, and 

 water, and thousands of such men gravely believe that fruit, 

 vegetables, and water are dreadfully unwholesome things. On 

 the other hand the South Sea Islanders t)rought to New Zealand 

 by the missionaries, and fed with white bread, meat, and tea, 

 instead of the fruit, vegetables, and water on which they were 

 reared, generally die of dysentery. A machine adapted to pulp 

 grass or turnips, is not in the right form to crush oats or wheat, 

 nor vice versa. All nature's changes arc gradual, and if a horse's 

 food is to be entirely changed, it should be done slowly and 

 cautiously, so that the tubes may adapt themselves to the altered 

 work required from them. Inattention to this has caused a 

 superstitious dread of roots and green meat for hardly worked 

 horses, though they would all l)e the better, get less " stale," 

 and stand their work and high feeding better, if daily allowed 

 to mix with their hard dry fojd, a very little of the succulent 

 vegetables natural to them, and for which they crave so eagerly. 



75. — However highly or moderately you intend to feed a 

 horse let him be fed by weiglit or measure. No horse can be 

 well fed in any other way The very dainty and the very greedy 

 feeder equally demand it. It is the only way in which the horse 

 can be got to eat at the best time to suit his work, and to 

 regularly take the exact quantity that his digestive organs will 

 best deal with before the next meal. It also gives the feeder 

 an opportunity of obtaining the first intimation of anything 

 wrong with the horse, if the regular measured quantity is not 

 eagerly and completely eaten up. If the horse is a delicate 

 feeder it is the more essential that he should never have food 

 that he will not eat standing under his nostrils, whilst the gross 

 feeder should not be allowed to eat so much at one meal that he 

 cannot take his allowance at the next, nor to break his wind 

 as many horses do by perpetually swallowing hay. However 

 highly you want to feed a horse, no more should be given him at 

 once than he will eat up with some appetite left, except when 



