64 ON CUTTING AND TRKPAUING FEED. 



it both good and cheap. The method pursued is, they chop 

 rye straw, about an inch or an inch and a iialflong, and put it 

 into the manger, two or three inches thick ; they then sprinkle 

 some water over it, making it all wet alike as nearly as possible, 

 care being taken that there is no superfluous water, as that 

 would destroy the intention of the process ; that done, they 

 carefully mix some rye meal, finely ground, the finer the better, 

 among the chopped straw ; a very small quantity of rye meal 

 will be SLifficient for a bushel of the cut straw. This causes 

 the horse to use his teeth much, thereby thoroughly masticating 

 the straw, which is all tinged with the rye meal, for, being more 

 gluey and tenacious than the meal of any other kind of corn, it 

 will not separate or fall off by the horse moving the food about 

 with his nose, which is one reason why it is preferred : and the 

 straw being so long is much better than if it were cut shorter, 

 for if it were not longer than a barley corn, the horse would 

 swallow much of it without chewing. Walking along the streets 

 of Piiiladelphia, 1 saw those men putting a quantity of rye 

 straw, chopped in the manner described, to their horses. At 

 that time, I thought it a bad way to chop straw long, as the 

 horses I had fed with straw in that state, shuffled it about the 

 manger, and threw much of it out, wasting some of the corn 

 likewise. These horses stood in the streets night and day, dur- 

 ing the most severe weather, tied to the pole of the wagon, with 

 a trough fixed upon it, so narrow and shallow that I supposed 

 the horses must toss a great deal of it out, but seeing they did 

 not, I stopped to look at them. As I had not then particularly 

 noticed their food, they told me that there was rye meal mixed 

 with it, which, when I examined, 1 found cleaved to the straw 

 like glue, it being so nicely incorporated that every straw had 

 its portion of meal, and thus the horses did not commit any 

 waste." 



The horses to which Parkinson here refers, were the fine 

 team horses, which, in teams of four and frequently eight horses, 

 finely caparisoned, with wagons bearing some reseniblance to a 

 canal boat for size and tonnage, and with their jingling ,bells, 

 were so frequently seen in Market street, in their journies to and 



