FOOD AND ITS QUALITIES. 23 



hay, too, should be given at the regulated hours and at 

 no other. 



In the important matter of food, he should be supplied 

 with the very best of oats ; old, certainly, till after March, 

 and later if they can be found sweet, and of English growth. 

 Winter at 42 lbs. per bushel, and black tartarian at 40, are 

 in -my opinion the best, far better than the thick-skinned 

 Scotch white oats at 46 lbs. per bushel or even heavier, 

 though the latter look to some people preferable to those I 

 have described, or indeed to any other. I do not object to 

 a few good white oats ; but they must be of home growth 

 of about 42 lbs. per bushel for mixing with an equal quantity 

 of black, such as I have named. But whatever the descrip- 

 tion given, they should be the very best of the sort or 

 sorts, for it is false economy of the very worst description 

 to buy inferior corn, however low the price. In fact, good 

 cannot be too dear ; whilst middling would be wretchedly 

 so as a gift. To supply the latter shows an utter want of 

 knowledge of his business on the part of any trainer. 



My antipathy to foreign corn is so great, that I could 

 never be induced to buy a bushel, or any larger quantity, 

 in my life, knowingly. But I have too much reason to 

 believe I was once imposed on, in the year 1847, in having 

 supplied to me a load of heavy oats, said to be English, 

 which the price warranted, but which turned out to be 

 Scotch delicately kiln-dried ; a process I failed to detect 

 in their appearance, taste, or smell. The result was, they 

 gave the horses diabetes, from which weakening disease 

 it took them weeks to recover : a plain practical proof of 

 their inferiority, and a good reason that none but English 

 should be used. Buy of the farmer in preference to the 

 dealer, and you know you get the genuine article. To 



