FOOD. 359 



148 ; parsnips, 99 ; carrots, 98. Of the grasses,1000 parts of the meadow 

 cat's tail contain at the time of seeding 98 parts of nutritive matter ; narrow- 

 leaved meadow grass in seed, and sweet-scented soft grass in flower, 95 ; 

 narrow-leaved and flat-stalked meadow grass in flower, fertile meadow 

 grass in seed, and tall fescue, in flower, 93; fertile meadow grass, meadow 

 fescue, reed-like fescue, and creeping soft grass in flower, 78 ; sweet- 

 scented soft grass in flower, and the aftermath, 77 ; florin, cut in winter, 

 76* ; tall fescue, in the aftermath, and meadow soft grass in flower, 74 ; 

 cabbage, 73; crested dog's tail and brome flowering, 71; yellow oat, 

 in flower, 66 ; Swedish turnips, 64 ; narrow-leaved meadow grass, 

 creeping beet, round-headed cocksfoot, and spiked fescue, 59 ; roughish 

 and fertile meadow grass, flowering, 56 ; florin, in summer, 54 ; common 

 turnips, 42 ; saint-foin, and broad-leaved and long-rooted clover, 39 ; 

 white clover, 32 ; and lucern, 23. 



The times of feeding should be as equally divided as convenience will 

 permit ; and when it is likely that the horse will be kept longer than usual 

 from home,the nose-bag should invariably be taken. The small stomach of 

 the horse is emptied in a few hours ; and if he is suffered to remain hungry 

 much beyond his accustomed time, he will afterwards devour his food so 

 voraciously as to distend the stomach and endanger an attack of staggers. 

 When this disease appears in the farmer's stable, he may attribute it to 

 various causes ; the true one, in the majority of instances, is irregularity in 

 feeding. If the reader will turn back to page 104, he will be convinced 

 that this deserves more serious attention than is generally given to it. 



When extra work is required from the animal, the system of manage- 

 ment is often injudicious ; for a double feed is put before him, and as 

 soon as he has swallowed it, he is started. It would be far better to give 

 him a double feed on the previous evening, which will be digested before he is 

 wanted, and then he may set out in the morning after a very small portion 

 of corn has been given to him, or perhaps only a little hay. One of the 

 most successful methods of enabling a horse to get well through a long 

 journey is to give him only a little at a time while on the road, and at 

 night to give him a double feed of corn and a full allowance of beans. 



Water. — This is a part of stable management little regarded by the 

 farmer. He lets his horses loose morning and night, and they go to the 

 nearest pond or brook and drink their fill, and no harm results ; for they 

 obtain that kind of water which nature designed them to have, in a man- 

 ner prepared for them by some unknown influence of the atmosphere, as 

 well as by the deposition of many saline admixtures. The difference be- 

 tween hard and soft water is known to every one. In hard water soap 

 will curdle, vegetables will not boil soft, and the saccharine matter of the 

 malt cannot be fully obtained in the process of brewing. There is nothing 

 in which the different effect of hard and soft water is so evident as in the 

 stomach and digestive organs of the horse. Hard water, drawn fresh from 

 the'Avell, will assuredly make the coat of a horse unaccustomed to it stare, 

 and it will not unfrequently gripe and otherwise injure him. Instinct or 

 experience has made even the horse himself conscious of this, for he will 

 never drink hard water if he has access to soft : he will leave the most 

 transparent and pure water of the well for a river, although the water 

 may be turbid, and even for the muddiest pool.* He is injured, however, 

 not so much by the hardness of the well-water as by its coldness — particu- 



' * Some trainers have so much fear of hard or strange water, that they carry with them 

 to the different courses the water that the animal has been accustomed to drink, and tliat 

 they know agrees with it. 



