160 Feeding. 



alone. To use them with advantage oats,, peas, 

 barley, bran, and chaff should be given with 

 them, which forms a most nutritious and easily 

 assimilable mass for hard-working animals. 



Hay and straw with bran,, are articles used 

 entirely for the purpose of giving bulk to the 

 forms of food which occur in grain, See., and also 

 on account of their mechanical action on the coats 

 of the digestive organs. By their use the food is 

 more perfectly masticated and digested, and 

 healthy action maintained with greater per- 

 sistence and regularity. 



Hay very frequently proves no better or more 

 economical than oat straw ; much depends upon 

 the mode in which it is gathered. If allowed to 

 stand until the seeds are ripe, greater part is 

 shed upon the ground; and as they then contain all 

 the nutrition, that which remains is not worth the 

 money usually paid for it. Nutrition exists in 

 good upland hay to the extent of 32 or 13 per 

 cent., but in other varieties not more than 6 or 8 

 per cent, is to be found. 



The quantity allowed to each horse is from 12 

 to 24 pounds. Greater economy is to be main- 

 tained by cutting up the hay and mixing with it 

 one-fourth or one-half cut oat straw. When 

 given in the long or uncut state, much waste 

 occurs by the animal drawing it beneath the 

 feet and trampling upon it. In the cut state it 

 id very closely consumed. 



Straw forms an indispensable article of diet, 



