THE HORSE. 109 



be allowed to a horse by day and by night; such 

 regulations may be necessary in the barracks, but 

 they are not worth the paper on which they are 

 written, in any other stables. The size, appetites, 

 digestive powers of horses, and the peculiar services 

 to w r hich they may be destined, differ so widely, that 

 no general rule in this respect can be established. 

 Corn lying in a small compass, but imparting the 

 chief nutriment, hay is given to fill up, to distend the 

 body of the horse, affording a different and inferior 

 species of nutriment ; the quantity required by each in- 

 dividual mustbe left to the experience of the groom, but 

 more to that of the master, if he be a horseman. The 

 only rule is to allow as much hay as a horse can eat 

 w r ith an appetite, granting no ill consequences to result. 

 Some horses, from a natural voraciousness, or from 

 complaints in the stomach, will be craving and eating 

 hay, night and day ; others will constantly pick and 

 pull it under their feet. In course, these must be 

 restricted in quantity, and have it frequently dis- 

 pensed. I have spoken of abolishing racks and 

 mangers, but it is not very apparent how we could 

 dispense with racks. Horses feed by night, and to 

 prevent waste, the mass of hay allowed them should 

 be as much as possible out of their reach, comeatable 

 only a mouthful at a time. Grooms are wonderfully 

 alarmed at horses eatino- their litter, an affair which 

 never disturbed me, since I never observed from it 

 any ill consequences ; but when a horse eats foul 

 litter (and I have known them eat the dung) it indi- 

 cates a bad state of the stomach, arising probably 



from acid crudities, and a want of purging ; as to 



v. 



