144 THE POCKET AND THE STUD. 



groom may eat the oats if he pleases, for depend 

 on it the horses would not ; but if we were to 

 make minced meat of them, I should still con- 

 sider it a very bad plan to give them with oats ; 

 for should the horse get accustomed to such a 

 mixture, he would afterwards refuse his corn 

 without it ; for this reason I always gave them as 

 separate food ; and, if bought at a proper season 

 of the year, by the ton, in the country they are 

 by no means an expensive one, — though they be- 

 come extremely so when a London coachman can 

 persuade his employer that they are necessary for 

 his horses, buys them by the bunch, consumes two 

 of those in his own family, and, if he is delicate 

 as to conscience, gives the third to his horses ; if 

 not, they of course all go the same way. Carrots, 

 if kept in a dry place in sand, will keep a long 

 time, or in sand they will keep out of doors, if 

 covered with straw, and then banked up with 

 earth. 



ChafFc , 



We must be not quite inattentive even to a 

 small item in stable feeding — the produce of hay, 

 namely, chaff. This is rather a plebeian term, as 

 connected with racing or hunting stables, and, I 

 believe, in the time of even our fathers was but 

 little used in such establishments ; it is, however, 



