182 FOOD. 



ure, nor would any person purchase such utter refuse, even at the frac- 

 tion of a penny per pound. Cheapness, in such particulars, is therefore 

 very far from the truest economy. 



Most chandlers do not keep the better specimens of oats. With the 

 majority, thirty-six pounds is about the prime standard. As a proof of 

 the correctness of the above assertion, the author, a few months ago, 

 visited a friend, and being grieved to see that the best price was paid 

 for an inferior oat, he purposed to call on all the neighboring dealers in 

 corn, inquiring for grain of only forty pounds weight. Even this the 

 writer was unable to obtain — all naming thirty-six pounds as the gravity 

 of the highest article which they had in stock. The gentleman, there- 

 fore, who determines to procure only the choicest corn, must purchase 

 of some large and respectable retail dealer. Should any chandler assert 

 the impossibility of his obtaining the heavier kind of grain, let the gen- 

 tleman at once seek some tradesman who has dealings at the Corn 

 Exchange, where any quantity of any species of grain can at all times 

 be secured, without further trouble than usually attends upon business 

 transactions. 



HEAVY AND LIGHT OATS AS EACH LIES IN THE MEASURE. 



The animal is doubly defrauded where poor corn is served out by 

 measure. The grain, in the first place, contains less nourishment; in 

 the next place, the solid bulk is not the same; because the husks not 

 only occupy more space, for, by acting as props to one another, fre- 

 quently clear cavities are formed. Therefore, were the light and the 

 heavy corns, required to fill a given measure, to be counted, probably 

 no vast difference would be discovered in their number. The reader 

 must, however, himself determine how far it is possible for a horse to 

 be cheated, without the master suffering from the fraud in its effect. 



Further injury is inflicted by permitting the quadruped to consume 

 only an inferior corn. Whoever will carefully examine the drawings of 

 oats given in the present division o]f the book, can hardly fail to remark 

 that the denuded kernels appear of a size disproportioned to that repre- 

 sented as the dimensions of the perfect grain. The microscope makes 

 plain the ^source of this apparent disparity. The epidermis or the 

 covering of the kernel is coated with numerous fine hairs, which are too 

 small to be perceptible to the vmaided vision. These hairs are closely 



