198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Salt should not be given on the food, but should be offered 

 to the horse once a week, or a lump of rock salt may be kept in 

 his manger. 



Horses should also be allowed, from time to time, access to 

 chalk, ashes, or common earth, which they will eat with avidity 

 in certain conditions of the system. It has been said with some 

 reason that these substances arc the best preventives of 

 cribbing, wind-sucking, etc., habits which probably result from 

 indigestion in some form. 



Glauber's salts is sometimes advantageously given to horses, 

 especially in the spring, as a mild aperient, and is readily eaten 

 by them. 



Saltpetre and all other medicines should be administered as 

 rarely as possible, and never, unless absolutely required by a 

 morbid condition of the horse. 



A bran mash, prepared by pouring boiling water upon from 

 four to eight quarts of wheat shorts and covering it over to 

 ■cool, is an excellent thing for a horse occasionally, softening 

 the dung, and increasing the tone of the digestive organs. 

 Many horsemen give a mash to their horses every Saturday 

 night instead of their regular food of grain, and the practice is 

 most judicious. By the proper use of mashes, the necessity of 

 physic, formerly so often given, is almost entirely obviated. 

 When carrots are fed, mashes will be seldom required. 



No horse should ever be allowed to drink more than a pailful 

 of water at a time, but should have it offered frequently. 

 Nothing can be more injurious to a horse than to be driven 

 rapidly, or required to exert himself violently, when his 

 stomach is distended with food or water; and the custom 

 prevalent in some countries of causing the horse to fast the 

 night before a hard journey is much more sensible than the 

 common one in New England of stuffing him with an unusual 

 amount of good food. 



When a horse is excessively fatigued, or when sufficient time 

 cannot be allowed for him to eat and partially digest a full meal, 

 he may be greatly refreshed by a draught of warm gruel, or, in 

 summer, of cold water containing a small quantity of meal. 

 In winter, a weary horse may be often prevented from chills by 

 permitting him to drink a bucket of luke-warm water. It 

 hardly need be mentioned that a horse when in a heated and 



