170 Feeding. 



when suffering from low debilitating diseases, as 

 influenza, strangles, &c., and during convalescence, 

 the roots prove very useful. They are cooling 

 and laxative, and furnish to the blood those 

 materials which disease has taken from that fluid, 

 but they require to be given in small quantities 

 and at regular intervals. 



Grass, clover, and vetches produce greater 

 harm than many suppose. During their use in 

 summer violent colic, sore throats, coughs, colds, 

 influenza, laminitis, swelled legs, &c. &c., occur 

 most commonly among our cab, omnibus, and 

 cart-horses. When animals are in good con- 

 dition, healthy, and doing their work well, it is 

 a great mistake to change the diet to green food. 

 In most instances the voracity of the animal's 

 appetite causes it to replace natural corn, and the 

 whole of that which months have been required 

 to produce, is spoiled and sacrificed in two or 

 three days. 



If horses are unfit for work by reason of lame- 

 ness, or operations and other causes, &c., which 

 call for rest in the summer season, the most 

 economical method of keeping them is to allow 

 grass or clover, &c., with oats under certain cir- 

 cumstances. To expect them to work upon such 

 food is to look for an impossibility, and is entirely 

 foreign to the horse in an artificial condition. 

 Green food and roots contain in every hundred 

 parts from 70 to 90 parts of water, and little over 

 5 per cent, of nutrition. During their consump- 



