304 THE HORSE 



and worked late, are frequently found in the morning 

 with the hair and skin damp, and in a condition of 

 lassitude which unfits them for entering upon the day's 

 labor with vigor. Ten hours of faithful work per day 

 is quite enough for either man or beast; and such 

 work would better be accomplished by starting early 

 than by continuing late. If the horses are brought to 

 the stable early, they have time to eat hay and to rest, 

 after which one -fourth of the grain ration is fed. Just 

 before the attendant retires, the last fourth of the 

 day's ration may be given. Or, if this is too much 

 trouble, the horses may be left to eat hay for an hour 

 while the teamster is eating supper; after which the 

 legs are cleaned, and then one half of the day's ration 

 of grain may be fed. The hay ration should be fed 

 about the time and in about the same proportion as the 

 grain is fed. How much grain and how much hay 

 should suffice for each horse it is impossible to say; since 

 the size of the horse, his ability to digest and assimilate 

 food, the kind of food consumed, and the work per- 

 formed vary widely. When horses are put to unusually 

 severe tasks for a month or two, when work is press- 

 ing, as they usually are on a farm, it is better to 

 increase their grain than their hay ration. Quite a 

 large part of the energy in food, especially if it is 

 coarse food, is used for preparing the ration for assimi- 

 lation. Coarse and unconcentrated foods are frequently 

 more expensive per unit of net available energy than 

 concentrated ones. It is not the total energy of the 

 food so much as the available energy over and above 

 that required to masticate and digest it that gov- 



