72 THE PRACTICAL HORSE KEEPER. 



retained in the large intestines, accumulating until there 

 is sometimes a very great quantity. Horses fed on dusty food, 

 such as the sweepings from grain-mills, or with that which 

 contains husks of oats, often have large calculi, or what are 

 called "dust balls," form in the intestines, which very fre- 

 quently cause rupture, obstruction, or strangulation of these. 

 Even a small pebble, small nail, or scrap of metal, gaining 

 access to the intestines with the food, may form the nucleus for 

 one of these accumulations, stones, or "concretions." 



Hay or grain may be unclean from bad preservation or 

 gathering, or even when growing. The most frequent cause of 

 uncleanliness in this respect is the presence of moulds of 

 various kinds, which not only diminish the value of the food 

 in nutrition, but may even prove injurious or poisonous to the 

 horses consuming it. The most common sources of damage to 

 growing plants or grain are the parasitic fungi, commonly 

 known as "Bunt," "Rust," "Mildew," "Smut," and "Ergot." 



" Bunt " grows on grasses, straws, and grains ; but it 

 chiefly attacks the head of wheat, which it destroys, replacing 

 the flour by a dark powder with a fish-like smell. When it 

 affects the stalks and leaves, these become pale, dry, and 

 shrivelled up. 



" Rust " appears as a reddish-yellow powder on the grasses, 

 and on the stalk, leaves, and flowering heads of plants, and 

 it more or less destroys them. 



" Mildew " shows itself as brown or black spots that are 

 really parasitic spores, which penetrate the plant, and change 

 the part into a black powder. 



" Smut " grows in large black clusters, somewhat like soot, 

 but solid, on grasses and grain-plants, causing them to look 

 sickly, bleached, and eventually killing them. 



" Ergot " grows on grasses and grain-plants, in the form of 

 a cock's spur or horn-shaped body, dark purple in colour, and 

 unpleasant in odour. 



