FEEDING A.KD WATERING. 23 



CHAPTER TL 



FEEDING AND WATERING. 



The health of the horse, and its ability to perform the service 

 required of it, depend to a large extent upon proper feeding. A great 

 amount of suffering and disease is doubtless caused by bad food, or 

 neglect of correct method. The horse has relatively the smallest 

 stomach in proportion to its bulk and weight of any domestic ani- 

 mal. The hver of a horse has no gall-bladder, the bile being secreted 

 and supplied during the digestive process. The entire anatomy 

 and physiology of its digestive apparatus show that the food of the 

 horse should be nutritious in quality, supplied frequently, and in 

 comparatively small quantities. The food, of whatever kind, must of 

 course be of good quality, sound and wholesome ; but beyond this 

 no specific rules can be laid down for general application. The 

 amount and character of the food must vary with the size and con- 

 stitution of the horse, the climate and season, the amount of work 

 required, and the country it lives in. The horse is an inhabitant of 

 nearly all parts of the earth, and exhibits a wonderful ada,ptability 

 to various situations. In Arabia its principal food is barley, va- 

 ried by scant herbage, and even dates ; in Iceland and some of the 

 Shetland Islands it subsists mainly on dried fish. The author once 

 saw a diminutive pony, which had recently arrived frpm one of 

 the smallest and bleakest of the Shetland Islands. Its food had 

 consisted almost entirely of dried fish, a supply of which was neces- 

 sarily brought along with the pony to avoid too abrupt a change 

 to other food. It was interesting to obsei*ve the puzzled expres- 

 sion of the shaggy little beast, as it watched its new companions 

 nipping the grass. On the western plains great herds of horses re- 

 tain splendid health and vigor through the rigid and stormy winters, 

 upon the dried bunch grass, often having to paw away the snow to 

 reach it. In England the food of horses is mainly hay, oats and 

 beans, (the last named is the broad flat Vicia fava, and not the kid- 

 ney bean) ; while in various parts of the continent, horses are fed on 

 rye, barley, and inferior quahties of wheat. In India the common 

 food of horses is a plant of the pea family (Cieer arietiimm), 

 known by the local name of "gram." In some parts of the United 

 States and southern regions of Europe Indian corn forms an import- 

 ant element in horse food, but not to such an extent that ' ' American 



