174 Feeding. 



and digestive organs, lie can exercise himself pro- 

 portionately with the food he gets, rest and be 

 thankful, preserved from cold winds, rain, or 

 the burning sun. Here his green food is to be 

 brought along with water and a feed of corn in 

 most instances, and with a dry bed beneath him, 

 a few weeks may be spent. He thus requires 

 less time to be got again into condition, maintains 

 it better afterwards, and gives greater satisfaction 

 in the end. 



With some proprietors, turning a horse to grass 

 is tantamount to avoiding expense under a false 

 belief in the efficacy of the plan. Horses that 

 are lame or ill and recovering slowly, are usually 

 trotted off, along with others not required for a 

 week or two, to the pasture. Such men can have 

 no idea what harm they bring upon themselves ; 

 they can have no idea what condition is, and the 

 cost required to establish it in the horse's body, 

 or they would not so lightly sacrifice it. Under 

 such treatment we no longer feel surprised at the 

 cases of swelled legs, grease, cracked heels, can- 

 ker, inflammation of the lungs, pleurisy, fatal 

 colic, surfeit, &c., which crowd the stables with 

 victims under some kinds of management. Our 

 experience too plainly shows the truth of all this, 

 and we feel we should be unfaithful to our trust if 

 silence was maintained upon the point. It is mis- 

 taken economy. Such management it scarcely 

 deserves the name is always productive of more 

 loss and inconvenience than profit, as is demon- 



