HOW TO SELECT A HORSE AND KEEP IT. 135 



Hay containing some clover is relished by most horses, and is good 

 for them, promoting a healthy action of the bowels. Hungarian 

 grass, well cured, is excellent, and if cut before the grain is matured 

 there is nothing better. Oat straw, or oats cut when in the milk, are 

 used by many farmers, but are very apt to be picked over by the 

 horse and the larger part of them wasted. The uneaten part can be 

 used for bedding, but the habit is soon acquired by the horse of pick- 

 ing out of all fodder what he likes best and leaving the rest, hence 

 it is best to feed only what will be eaten up clean. Corn fodder is 

 usually relished, and especially the green corn stalks, from which the 

 ears have been taken for the table. A horse whose appetite is poor, 

 or which is out of condition from hard work or other general causes, 

 will be benefited more by a good feed twice a day of such stalks 

 than anything the writer has ever seen, and a comparison in weight 

 shows a constant gain during the feeding. There is hardly an ani- 

 mal that will not leave the best hay or grain for them, if all three 

 are put in the manger together. Horses are partial to sweets, as 

 most people know, and the carbonaceous matter contained in the 

 juice of the stalks is very fattening. 



The grain fed should be varied. A steady use of any particular 

 kind is not good practice. An alternation of corn, whole or cracked, 

 (or on the ear if one has it), Indian meal, oats, and provender can be 

 made so that the horse will not tire of either. Cut hay, with meal 

 or provender, makes a good feed once a day, though there is a dis- 

 position on the part of the horse to do less chewing than is some- 

 times necessary. Oats for the driving horse are reckoned by nearly 

 all horsemen to be the best feed, but the eagerness with which some 

 hungry horses eat them results in their being swallowed whole, and 

 in this state they pass along the alimentary canal undigested, and 

 are very often so found in the manure. Many of the second quality 

 oats have no grain in the hull, and hence are not easily crushed by 

 the teeth. In both these cases no possible benefit is derived from 

 them. There is no better way of feeding oats than to grind them 

 coarsely with a varying amount of sound Indian corn, some prefer- 

 ring equal quantities of each, and others two parts oats to one of 

 corn. This coarse crushing renders both more easily digestible, and 

 the corn furnishes the elements lacking in the oats. The so-called 

 "provender" to be bought at the grain stores, consisting of second 

 quality corn and oats, mixed often with middlings or shorts, does 

 not count beside the real article. Cob-meal is fast losing its sup- 

 porters, and has probably seen its best days. Roots — such as carrots, 

 especially mangolds, or sugar beets, are doubtless nutritious and 

 beneficial, some holding that carrots are worth as much as an equal 



