FOOD AND feENEKAL TREATMENT. 401 



CHAPTER XVII. 



FOOD AND GENERAL TREATMENT. 



With this chapter we enter upon another division of our 

 work — the consideration of the horse's food, treatment, and 

 management generally. Here an interesting field of investi- 

 gation opens before us, and one of primary importance to 

 every owner of the horse. Possibly this department of our 

 subject should have had the precedence of all others, since, 

 upon a proper attention to and observance of the luws which 

 we here find in uniform operation, depends entirely the ani- 

 mal's health, and hardly less his good qualities. We are 

 of the opinion that t^ie matter of diet — its adaptation, espe- 

 cially, to the varying ages and conditions of the horse and 

 to the changing seasons of the year — has more to do with the 

 improvement of blood and the development of fine qualities 

 than any other consideration whatever. 



Many farmers say that they " have an unvarying rule in 

 the treatment of their horses." I^ow, this is simply an 

 avowal that they have adopted a .course of most inconsistent 

 and ruinous management — a course that at one season of the 

 year will overfeed the horse and engorge his whole system, 

 and at another will starve and impoverish him ; a course that 

 may be advantageous so long as he remains in health, but 

 detrimental in the extreme when disease begins its insidious 

 approaches. 



The system of the horse varies in its capabilities, its con- 

 ditions, and its needs as much as that of the human being. 

 Some horses can live and thrive upon certain kinds of food 

 that others can not eat without being greatly injured, and 

 the condition of the same horse may vary so much that what 

 is proper and healthful at one time ought to be absolutely 

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