FOOD 93 



judgment in determining what amount and what quality of food is neces- 

 sary to keep the animal in the best working condition. In the chapter on 

 stable management the details of ordinary practice are described, and it will 

 be seen that the quantity of food which a horse can advantageously con- 

 sume varies in proportion to the amount and character of the exertion 

 which the animal has to perform; the materials employed remain the same 

 for example, oats, hay, wheat, straw, and bran, with occasional small 

 quantities of carrots or turnips, and, at certain seasons, grass. In ordinary 

 work a horse will consume daily, on the average, three quarterns of oats, with 

 a small quantity of bran, and the addition of what is roughly calculated as 

 a double handful of chaff composed of chopped hay arid straw. A truss 

 and a half of hay in the rack per week is a reasonable allowance. The very 

 wide limits which are permissible, and, indeed, advantageous, in regard to 

 quantity may be gathered by reference to the feeding of a brougham horse 

 in the most active part of a London season, during which comparatively 

 short time a number of horses are worked out, as it is called, in spite of the 

 amount of food which they consume, and are disposed of at the end of the 

 time, often in a very feeble condition. A cab horse, again, in constant 

 work in a large town, consumes an amount of provender which varies with 

 the animal's appetite and the opportunities which may be afforded for 

 taking food. Usually the nose-bag is put on every time a journey is 

 ended, and an interval is therefore allowed to the animal for refreshment. 

 Notwithstanding the amount of provender which hard-worked horses will 

 consume, it is evident that the exhausting effects of excessive exertion are 

 not prevented by excessive feeding; but it is, on the other hand, quite 

 certain that horses which are called upon to perform excessive work do 

 better with a practically unlimited allowance of food by which is meant 

 supplying as much food as the animal is disposed to take than they do 

 when the quantity is limited. 



Food and Work. While excessive work, even with a liberal dietary, 

 produces more waste in the system than can be compensated by the food 

 which is taken, it is equally true that rest with a liberal dietary would be 

 more injurious than excessive labour, and the typical system with regard to 

 the proportion of food to the amount of work would be one which exactly 

 supplied the amount of nutritive material accurately adjusted to the waste 

 going on in the system. There are no means, however, of calculating this 

 with absolute precision, and the matter is, therefore, necessarily left to 

 experience. 



Arrangement of the Diet. Under ordinary conditions, particu- 

 larly in small establishments, the arrangement of the horse's dietary is left 

 to the groom or coachman, and so long as the animals are performing the 



