126 Farm Horses. 



whole being capable of being moved bodily on wheels. 

 Any quantity of ground may be covered by a roof sup- 

 ported on wooden walls, in building which a certain 

 number of grooved posts are used receiving planks and 

 carrying rafters and sheets of corrugated iron roofing 

 every part of each section being exactly like another, so 

 that the whole can be taken down and unpacked, and 

 carried away and replaced, without the drawing of a nail 

 and with no need of any particular skill. 



Stable Management. 



Having got the young horse so far advanced as to be 

 able to stand full work, it is the object of the farmer to 

 feed him economically and to the best advantage. The 

 provender should be the best the farm produces, for this 

 is ultimately the cheapest ; and as great a variety of pro- 

 vender should be given mixed together as is compatible 

 with economy, and the quantity of each kind should be 

 regulated according to the amount of nitrogenous matter 

 contained in each. Vetches (seed) and beans contain 

 nitrogenous compounds in largest quantities ; but when 

 horses are feed upon either of these kinds of provender 

 alone, the health soon fails, owing to the beans being too 

 heating and binding ; tares are too bitter as well as bind- 

 ing ; but were the heating and binding beans and vetches 

 mixed with cool and relaxing bran, which contains much 

 less nitrogen, we should have the cheapest and most 

 nutritious food which can be given to animals, and as 

 wholesome food as it is cheap and nutritious. It is, how- 

 ever, absolutely necessary that the beans should be 

 roughly ground ; bruising only is not sufficient for easy 

 digestion, nor do horses, as a rule, eat them so well. But 

 horses must have some more bulky food than beans and 

 bran for however nutritious the diet, there must be bulk 

 also. If hay is not used, some other kind of provender 

 equally bulky must be substituted. In the horse the large 

 intestines, as well as the stomach, suffer from long absti- 

 nence of food, and no class of horses are more subject to 

 long fasting than farmers' horses. The smallness of the sto 



