32 THE HORSE : ITS KEEP AND MANAGKMENT. 



This is of course a great waste, and yet I have never 

 known the farmer complain to the horse keeper. He 

 usually takes it as the natural course of things that he has 

 always been accustomed to. Now, suppose this is done for 

 say seven months in the year, and from thirty-six to fifty 

 pounds of hay is used each night, two pounds out of that 

 amount is wasted every day, that means over seven trusses 

 of hay wasted in two hundred and ten days. I am 

 very much under-rating it by these rough figures, 

 as, when horses are racked up with hay, unless it is given 

 very carefully, and is of the best quality, there is much 

 wasted. The animals get it down under their feet and 

 trample on it. Many farmers do not give their cart 

 horses any hay cut up into chaff, but merely cut up wheat, 

 barley, and oat straw, not that they always mix it 

 together, but oat and wheat straw are usually what they use, 

 the latter in preference. When they have thrashed the 

 wheat they use the chaff which comes from the ear. 



It is most remarkable what good condition horses will 

 keep in if fed and managed properly. You might go to 

 two farmers, and find one allows his horses more corn than 

 his neighbour, and yet they are not in anything like so good 

 condition as the other horses. This may appear very 

 strange to many readers. A good horse keeper always gives 

 his horses but a very little at a time, and very seldom takes 

 them out in the morning unless he gives them two hours' 

 bait, as they call it. That is, feeding them two hours before 

 they begin to work. When they are fed in this way the 

 horses enjoy their food and masticate it well. 



