FEEDING. 135 



better and a more useful sort of horse with more lever 

 power. For this purpose they are invaluable. 



When the prize fighter is trained and prepared for a 

 contest in which the greatest activity, strength and en- 

 durance are necessary, he is stripped of all surplus bile 

 and fat ; but tliese men pursue a different course and 

 sacrifice their interest to gratify their fancy. AVe never 

 trusted another with the feeding of our horses without 

 our personal supervision. A being akin to the man wlio 

 starves himself all day, and thus loses his appetite for his 

 dinner at night and takes dinner pills to create an arti- 

 ficial one, is not to be trusted with the feeding of other 

 men's horses. Animals in their natural state go to sleep 

 after meals. The wolf eats enough to last him two or 

 three days, and during the hours of repose he is drowsy 

 and stupid — not because he had his meal, but because he 

 ate too much at once. Over-feeding horses has the same 

 eifect, and a horse in that state, whether he be saddle or 

 truck horse, does everything reluctantly except go to 

 sleep. 



We know how fashionable women dread the a23proacli 

 of obesity, and with what trouble and sacrifices they try 

 to get rid of it. But the Dutchman wlio puts more in 

 his horse's manger than he can eat don't look at obesity 

 in that lisrht. We once rode beside a novice in the art 

 of hunting, and at noon, when his horse gave out, he 

 said he ^^ could not understand why he should tire so 

 soon for the groom said he got loose in the stable and 

 had his head in the oat-bin all night." 



