INDIAN PULSES. 169 



the daily food ration of ordinary working horses will almost 

 always be of benefit ; and 3 Ib. a day will not be too much 

 for racehorses, even in the highest state of training. It is 

 safest to give carrots sliced longitudinally, so that they 

 may not stick in the animal's gullet and thus choke him. 



Horses greatly relish good, ripe eating apples. I have 

 never found that they have any difficulty in breaking the 

 stones of plums between their teeth. In South Africa pump- 

 kins are often given to horses as " green meat." Horses eat 

 sugar-cane with great relish, and apparently with benefit. If 

 this variety of grass is given in long stalks, a horse is apt, 

 when consuming a piece, to put a forefoot on one end of it, 

 and to squeeze the juice out of the other end, by drawing the 

 stalk between his front teeth, which will tend to become 

 quickly worn down by the resulting friction with the flinty 

 surface of the cane. The possibility of a horse practising 

 this form of cribbing, can be prevented by cutting the canes 

 into short pieces. 



As before indicated, I do not think it advisable to give 

 roots, tubers, and similar articles of fodder in a boiled state 

 to horses. In some parts of the East, horses are fed to a 

 considerable extent on dates, which have a comparatively 

 high nutritive value. 



INDIAN PULSES. 



Gram (Cicer arietinum), which is called chunna in Hindus- 

 tanee, is a kind of pea, and is the grain most commonly 

 used for horses in Northern India and the Bombay Presi- 

 dency ; not because it is preferred in those parts to oats, but 

 because oats are more expensive and are more difficult to be 

 obtained. Gram, like other peas, is too rich in nitrogenous 

 matter to serve efficiently as the only grain for horses. In 

 fact, a larger quantity of it than 10 Ib. daily can rarely be 

 given without its causing offensively-smelling diarrhoea, and a 



