154 VARIETIES OF FOOD. 



it to their use. The experience of owners and trainers in 

 America and South Africa, in both of which countries maize 

 is largely employed in the feeding of common horses, is that 

 oats are much the better grain of the two for racehorses, 

 match trotters, and animals of the hunter class. As I have 

 already pointed out, it is unsuitable to young horses, owing to 

 its poverty in mineral matter. 



BARLEY. 



A long experience of feeding horses on barley in India 

 leads me to conclude, that when properly employed, it 

 answers its purpose fairly well, and that it is not much in- 

 ferior to maize as a food ; provided that it is used only in 

 comparatively small quantities. Being poor in woody fibre 

 and hard, it should, before being given to horses, be broken 

 and mixed with a material which is rich in woody fibre, such 

 as chopped hay or chopped straw. It is the only grain 

 that is generally used for horses in Syria, Egypt, Arabia, 

 Persia, Algeria, and other Eastern countries, where 10 Ib. is 

 regarded as an ample daily ration. In these places, it is 

 usually mixed with barley straw or wheaten straw which has 

 been broken into small pieces and thoroughly bruised by the 

 native threshing machine (Arabic, Noraj). This form of chaff 

 or chop is called tibben in Arabic. The softness of tibben and 

 of the chaff employed in South Africa with maize, is un- 

 doubtedly the chief cause of the good results obtained with 

 barley and maize in these respective countries. It is instruc- 

 tive to know that a mixture of barley and tibben keeps Eastern 

 horses in excellent condition without any other kind of forage. 

 Chopped hay or chopped straw, owing to its greater hardness, 

 is by no means such a good vehicle for barley as tibben. The 

 only valid objection which can be advanced against the use of 

 barley, and which can be more or less obviated by mixing it 

 with bran or suitable chaff, is that it is liable to cause the 



