98 THEORY OF FEEDING. 



proportionate to that of the easily digestible nutritious matter 

 of the corn. Highly-fed hunters have so clearly demonstrated 

 the correctness of this principle, by manifesting their apprecia- 

 tion of a feeding material rich in fibre, that " hard hay " and 

 "hunters' hay" have become synonymous terms. As the 

 digestion of hay demands the expenditure of more energy 

 than that of grain, it is better for a working horse to obtain 

 the nutritious portion of his food from the latter than from 

 the former kind of fodder. Hence the larger the ration of corn, 

 the richer in fibre (i.e. the more innutritious) should be the 

 hay or chop. When the supply of corn, and consequently that 

 of easily digestible nutritious matter, is small, the hay given 

 to a working horse should be rich in nourishment and 

 comparatively poor in fibre, as we find with hay which has 

 been made from young, good grass, and which has been well 

 saved. 



The amount of fibre, like that of water in food, greatly 

 increases the weight as well as the volume of the contents of 

 the stomach and intestines, as Wolff shows us by the following 

 results of experiments with sheep : 



Contents of stomach and 

 Fodder. intestines as percentage 



of live weight. 

 Chiefly straw . . . . . . . . 22. 3 



Hay with a little beans . . . . . . 15.7 



High diet ......... 9.4 



From this we may reasonably infer that the difference 

 between the weight of the contents of the stomach and intes- 

 tines of a horse fed on food rich in woody fibre, like hay and 

 straw, and that of the same animal when fed principally on 

 corn, might easily amount to 8 per cent, of the entire bodily 

 weight, which difference in the case of a horse weighing 1,000 Ib. 

 would be 80 Ib. The woody-fibre method of feeding would 

 therefore force the animal to carry this amount of extra weight 

 without any corresponding gain. In fact, as we have already 



