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wunt of a knowledge of tiie internal economy of llie 

 horse, than is at first imagined. The horse, as an 

 animal intended for speed, is furnished with a very 

 small stomach, but capacious intestines ; he therefore 

 should be fed but a little at a time; and as we know 

 that whenever the stomach is empty a great debihty 

 pervades the whole frame, and as a small stomach 

 must be frequently empty, so we should frequently 

 feed our horses, giving them but a little at a time. 

 The general food of horses is herbage green or dry, 

 and grain, which is always dry. Green herbage is 

 from all the various grasses ; the dry is commonly of 

 clover and meadow hay ; and, among saddle horses, 

 meadow hay is used by far the most frequent. Any 

 kind of grain nourishes a horse, but barley and' oats 

 are the most in use, and in South Britain oats are 

 almost exclusively used. To horses under common 

 labour, from sixteen to twenty pounds of sound mea- 

 dow hay, with from half a peck to three quarters of 

 a peck of old full oats daily, will be fully sufficient: 

 should frost or other circumstances prevent or lessen 

 their exercise to a very small degree of exertion, then 

 even the above quantity may be lessened, and a small 

 proportion of bran substituted for some of the corn: 

 on the other hand, when the exercise is very severe, 

 it may be increased. But since corn and hay have 

 become so extravagantly dear, many other substances 

 have been substituted as food for saddle horses, which 

 were before but little used, or confined to draught 

 horses, as straw, chaff, carrots, potatoes, &c. Some 

 persons, v» hen hay is dear and corn cheap, substitute 

 wheaten straw for hay ; others mix straw with their 

 hay. But by far the most economical mode for the 



