CONSTRUCTION AND FITTING OF STALLS. 233 



of the animal, should be of such a nature that he will not be 

 induced to gnaw it, the practice of which habit will be apt to 

 teach him to crib. Iron, whether plain, galvanised, or 

 enamelled, will therefore be the most suitable substance for 

 their construction. I have heard that inferior kinds of enamel 

 often contain poisonous salts of lead, but am unable to say 

 how far the presence of these compounds would affect the 

 health of horses which fed or drank out of vessels lined with 

 such enamel. 



It is manifest that the most natural position for a 

 horse's food to occupy when he is eating it, is on the ground. 

 In ordinary cases, it is certainly the one which is most 

 conducive to his health ; because it obliges him to eat his 

 corn more slowly ; it offers more facilities to the saliva to 

 flow from the salivary glands into the mouth ; and it gives 

 more exercise to the muscles of the head and neck than would 

 be the case if the food were placed on a higher level. As the 

 corn which is supplied to a horse is richer in nutriment and 

 can be more easily swallowed by the animal than any kind of 

 forage he would be likely to obtain in the open, and as the 

 digestibility of equine food is largely dependent on its 

 thorough mastication ; the natural inducement to eat slowly, 

 offered by the fact of the animal being obliged to hold his 

 head low down, must be an effective aid to digestion. I will 

 not go the length of saying, as some authorities do, that 

 failure to obtain sufficient exercise of those muscles of the 

 throat which are constantly kept at work during the act of 

 grazing, is a cause of roaring ; but I feel certain that it must 

 interfere more or less with the due nutrition of the structures 

 which are brought into play by the act of feeding off the 

 ground. Against this practice, we have the objections that 

 some horses which have infirm fore-legs, could not feed com- 

 fortably with their forage in this position ; that a horse is apt 

 to soil and waste his food by trampling on it and by throwing 



