514 The Book of the Horse. 



chaff to mix with hay unless it is at least as cheap. Clover hay does not suit horses in 

 fast work. Green oat straw cut from the owner's fields is very good chaff. 



Mashes, if properly prepared and given at least once a week, will supersede the use 

 of green forage, and render the administration of laxative physic unnecessary. 



Where horses are being fattened for sale, some people boil beans in the mash as well as 

 oats. 



Thorley, Hope, and others, advertise condiments for getting horses into condition. These 

 are of use in special circumstances, with delicate feeders, and with horses recovering from 

 influenza or fever, as stimulants ; but no horse can be got into condition for fast work who 

 cannot eat his regular meals of oats and hay, with or without beans, according to age and 

 constitution. These advertised condiments take the place occupied by pickles and "pick-me- 

 ups " in the food of human bipeds. Goode's loaves answer very well when fresh, but they must 

 not be kept more than a week, and that in a dry place. His concentrated food advantageously 

 takes the place of beans, and is more digestible. It is made up in seven-ounce cakes, and 

 costs IIS. 6d. for a case of 144 pounds. Delicate feeders eat it greedily. I have used it with 

 good results on a hard-working brougham horse. Two to three cakes with or without oats every day. 



The purchase of fodder is one of those matters that a horse-owner should not leave to the 

 uncontrolled management of the groom, unless he be a servant (I have known many such) who 

 may thoroughly be depended on. The fees a groom may receive from the horsedealer, the 

 coachmaker, and the saddler, are only a tax on your purse. But inferior fodder, hay, and 

 oats, that give a minimum of nutriment, even if not absolutely musty and poisonous, affect the 

 health and condition of your horses insensibly. Corndealers and fodder contractors hold out 

 extraordinary inducements to grooms and coachmen to pass whatever they choose to send in. 

 They themselves are sometimes deceived in a rick of hay or a cargo of oats. As a matter of 

 course they distribute the bad bargains where the master is careless and the groom needy. 

 Prevention is better than cure. Such tricks will not be played on the master who is in the 

 habit of handling the oats and smelling the hay. If the horse-owner's occupations are so 

 onerous that he cannot personally attend to any of the details of a great stable, even for an 

 hour now and then, he must choose his head groom well, making it worth his while to be 

 honest, and making him understand that if from any cause the majority of the stud do not 

 keep in good condition, he, the responsible person, will lose his place. 



LIVERY STABLES. 



The estimated consumption in one of the best livery stables in London per horse per 

 week is about two bushels of oats, two bushels of chaff, one truss of hay, and two trusses of 

 straw. 



Job horses, full 15 hands 3 inches high, which it is the interest of the proprietor to keep 

 in the best possible condition, are supplied with, per fortnight, eight to ten bushels of oats (or 

 oats with beans if old horses), two sacks of good chaff of hay and clover, three trusses of 

 hay, and four to six trusses of straw. 



CAVALRY HORSES. 

 The regulated allowance per day is, of oats ten pounds, of hay twelve pounds, or about 

 a quarter of a truss ; but when horses have to camp out in wet weather officers should give 

 their chargers an extra quartern of beans daily. 



