ii6 THEORY OF FEEDING. 



action of the digestive juices. Owing to the smoothness 

 of the surface of almost all the grains given to horses, 

 they can be much more easily swallowed without being 

 properly masticated, when given whole, than when bruised ; 

 hence the advisability of this process. If the horse was 

 in a state of nature, the covering of the grain would 

 oblige him to chew the ear, cob, or pod before he could 

 swallow its contents. There can be no question as to the 

 advantage of bruising oats and other grain for old horses, 

 and for those whose chewing powers are impaired. Colin, 

 however, maintains that in ordinary cases the bruising of 

 corn does not improve the digestibility of grain. Neverthe- 

 less we find that in the experiments from which he drew his 

 conclusions, the period of mastication was 4^ per cent, 

 longer, and the amount of saliva secreted was 17 per cent, 

 greater with bruised oats than with whole oats. I have 

 found, especially in training racehorses, that horses do better 

 on the former than on the latter food. I feel strengthened in 

 this conclusion by the fact that when such animals are fed on 

 bruised oats, less husk is found in their dung than when 

 they are given whole oats. Leaving oats out of the ques- 

 tion, there is no doubt that the crushing or coarse grinding 

 of many kinds of grain maize and barley, for instance 

 greatly improves their digestibility and wholesomeness. 



Mlintz (Recherches sur la Digestion des Four rages) has 

 proved by experiment, that when uncrushed oats are given 

 by themselves, a certain percentage is passed out in an 

 unchanged condition along with the dung ; and that this 

 loss of nutritious material can be almost entirely obviated by 

 bruising. He also found that this loss, in the case of un- 

 bruised oats, can be prevented to a great extent by mixing 

 the oats with other forage, such as chop or bran. He 

 observed that the digestibility of maize and beans was not 

 injuriously affected, like oats, by the fact of their being given 



