'*■•■ 

 FOOD AND GENERAL TREATMENT. 409 



in substance, and decidedly excelling it on the score of health- 

 fulness. 'Next is the Hungarian grass, which requires a rich 

 soil and favorable season. The millet, which holds the third 

 place in the list, is little better than wheat or oat-straw, ex- 

 cept for the seed that it bears. A horse fed through a whole 

 winter on this kind of fodder would almost starve to death. 



Another kind of fodder, and one much more extensivel}^ 

 used than any of the annual grasses, is the corn fodder, ob- 

 tain-ed by pulling the blades from the stalk, in the month of 

 August, and, after allowing them to dry, binding them in 

 bundles, and storing them for winter use. This possesses 

 considerable nutrition, or rather substance, but is, undoubt- 

 edly, injurious in its tendency upon the health and general 

 condition of the horse. It appears to dry up the blood in a 

 most remarkable manner, and from its great bi-ittleness — 

 causing it to chop up easily into a harsh, dry powder — it is 

 apt to harm the throat. It constitutes nearly the sole de- 

 pendence for foddfer in the cotton States, where all the Helds 

 of corn are regularly stripped of their blades, in August, for 

 this purpose. To the extensive use of corn fodder we at- 

 tribute much of the unhealthiness of the horse at the South ; 

 but this subject having been already discussed at some length, 

 in our descriptions of big head, it hardly seems necessary to 

 enlarge upon it here. 



The different straws of wheat, rye, and oats possess a 

 limited amount of substance — about one-twentieth as much 

 as does good timothy hay; but they are so very dry that 

 they can not be regarded as of much value to the horse. 

 They may be used as chopped feed, with meal or provender ; 

 but the horse has such a disrelish for them in any other form, 

 that he will not eat them until driven to it by starvation. 



All these varieties of fodder and straw seem much better 

 suited to the wants of other animals than the horse. For his 

 use they are too dry, and tax the salivary glands too much 

 in the process of mastication ; and so with those agencies of 

 the stomach which soften the food down into chyme. In 

 giving such feed to the horse, it should always be chopped, 



