VEGETABLE FOODS. 43 



hull and in the form of grits or hominy it is not as 

 digestible as wheat, oatmeal or rice ; moreover its pecu- 

 liar taste must generally be disguised or dogs will turn 

 from it unless very hungry. 



It is absolutely necessary to cook this meal for at least 

 three hours, otherwise it will be highly indigestible and 

 much of it will journey through the intestinal canal and 

 pass out unchanged in the discharges, and possibly cause 

 diarrhoea. And here appears one reason for the disrepute 

 into which it has fallen with breeders, they failing to 

 meet this requirement and using it when practically raw ; 

 while another pronounced reason is, that for weeks and 

 months it is generally made the staple food and rarely 

 varied from. 



But while it is not suited to toys, because like all such 

 meals it is somewhat "heating," because, also, this and 

 other coarse meals are not relished by them, when given 

 to other varieties no unpleasant results need be appre- 

 hended if care and judgment are exhibited. 



The proper way to use it is for admixture with other 

 starches as well as meat. For instance, without consid- 

 ering the vegetables or soup, let one feeding be made up 

 of one-half boiled corn meal, one-fourth bread and one- 

 fourth meat ; the next time substitute rice for the bread ; 

 and so on — always softening the starches with the broth 

 from the meat. 



Corn meal has also been blamed for skin diseases, and 

 notably eczema, and here again many of the complainants 

 must have been at fault in keeping it until its oily con- 

 stituents had becorne rancid, in which condition it is dele- 

 terious alike to man and animals, and in both has a special 

 tendency to excite cutaneous affections, some of which are 

 even more serious than eczema. 



Excepting it is done in a suitable apparatus and by 



