CHAP. VII. 



DIET FOR HORSES. 



447 



not get the benefit of respite from work they otherwise would. The 

 best plan for large establishments is to have a board put up in the 

 stable, with the times of feeding, grooming, &c., distinctly speci- 

 fied thereon. Much harm is often done by ploughmen drugging 

 their horses in order to improve their appearance; this should be 

 strictly condemned and forbidden. A farmer may unfortunately get 

 into a breed of horses that are easily put off their feed, and the use of 

 a condiment may be necessary. However, it should be remembered 

 that manufacturers of condiment make immense profits, whilst the 

 following recipe may be made up at home for about 12 per ton, 

 equally as good as those condiments usually sold at 30. The prices 

 quoted below are subject to considerable fluctuations : 



RECIPE FOR MAKING A TON OF COXDIMENTAL FOOD. 



20 







The late Dr. George Fleming, Principal Veterinary Surgeon to the 

 Army, in the course of an article on the feeding of horses which appeared 

 in the " live Stock Journal Almanac," stated that, so long as a horse has 

 plenty of time to eat it, a hay diet causes no inconvenience on account 

 of its bulk, but when leisure is not allowed, or when he has to exert 

 himself after a sufficient meal of hay, then injury is likely to be done. 

 It has been remarked that, in the process of mastication, dry hay 

 becomes mixed with four times its weight of saliva, while oats only 

 require an amount of saliva equivalent to their own weight. It is said 

 that a horse, in eating ten pounds of hay, loads his stomach with forty 

 pounds of saliva in addition, or fifty pounds in all ; but in consuming 

 an equivalent amount of oats, say five pounds, he needs but five pounds 

 of saliva, or ten pounds altogether. Therefore, in introducing into the 

 system a given amount of flesh-forming 'aliment in the form of oats, 

 the stomach is filled to only one-fifth the extent that would be neces- 

 sary if the same quantity of nutrient material were given in the form 

 of hay. But the ten pounds of hay, with its saliva, could not all be 

 accommodated in the stomach at once, but only at three times, unless 

 the organ is to be distended to more than the normal plenitude of two- 



