FOOD OF HORSES. 267 



name of hay, some of which our high-bred and pam- 

 pered horses reject altogether, while others are abso- 

 lutely injurious to those horses that from long fast eat 

 almost any sort of rubbishing hay, in their ravenous 

 desire to satisfy hunger. 



When grazing, the sensible horse leaves many kinds 

 of grasses untouched ; the famed daisy and gilded but- 

 ter-cup have no charms for his palate ; but when the 

 mower comes, he humbles the whole produce of the 

 field into one common mass, and the dried provender is 

 served out to the horse of every kind, regardless of his 

 palate or his constitution. It sometimes happens that 

 hay is ill-got, and becomes what is termed mow-burnt, 

 fmd if not extending too far, the process of excessive 

 fermentation renders the grass more palatable to the 

 horse, though not so to all hay-feeding animals. I 

 would not, however, recommend mow-burnt hay to be 

 given to horses, as it causes them to crave for water 

 more than they do when fed on bright hay. Moreover. 

 it may, like rank, ill-gotten, or coarse-grown hay, be the 

 harbinger of disease, the mow-burnt hay having lost all 

 its succulence, and the latter kinds, hard of digestion, 

 and offensive to the horse's palate. 



A very good corrective of bad hay is found in the 

 free use of salt. And I think many farmers and horse- 

 men do not fully appreciate the value of salt as a re- 

 storative after those internal inflammations to which the 

 horse is (more than any other animal) subject. When 

 the tone of the stomach is lost, or so impaired that the 



