Feeding Horses. 235 



mortality, and found that, owing to the nature of the 

 herbage during that season, these small ruminants were 

 very liable to get inflammation of the true stomach, 

 which complaint had been, almost invariably, attended 

 with fatal consequences, I tried the effect of a draught, 

 composed of 3 or 4 drachms of oil of turpentine and 

 4 oz. of linseed oil, with the result that we lost no more 

 sheep, and had our mutton as usual. Turpentine is, 

 probably, the most generally useful medicine that is to 

 be found in the veterinary pharmacopoeia. 



The scientific knowledge I had acquired at Edinburgh 

 enabled me to grapple with the important subject of 

 feeding horses in Cachar, where the only grain the 

 natives give their ponies Is paddy (unhusked rice), which, 

 being indigenous, is very cheap. The European resi- 

 dents generally used £^ram, a kind of pea, which was 

 about twice as dear as the rice ; while a few who did a 

 little racing, actually had oats imported at about double 

 the price of gram. I may remark in passing that rice 

 is very rich in starch, but poor in nitrogenous matter, 

 or flesh formers, to use the old-fashioned term ; while 

 the very opposite is the case with gram. Oats hold 

 an intermediate position in the scale of foods. I 

 found that my ho'-ses could not do hard work on rice ; 



