THE FEEDING OF HORSES 239 



they are crushed to prevent tlie formation of paste in the mouth. 

 The market price of wheat, especially, allows of its being fed 

 only under unusual conditions. 



Other materials, the availability of which is more or less 

 restricted, may prove worthy of a place in the horse's ration Avhen 

 and where they can be secured at low cost For example, one 

 enterprising Philadelphia city teamster met the high cost of 

 oats and com, of recent years, by introducing a ration of mo- 

 lasses and stale bread, on which his horses did well. 



ROUGHAGE FOR HORSES 



Timothy is in a class by itself as a roughage for horses, the 

 leafless nature of the plant insuring nearly perfect curing and 

 freedom from dust in the hay. In addition there is a constrin- 

 gent property in timothy by virtue of which horses filled up with 

 it keep hard and do not become washy on the road, as horses will 

 if fed on the hay from a legume or on fresh grass. The market 

 value of timothy hay is not in accordance with its chemical com- 

 position. The very feature which horsemen favor in it is cor- 

 related with a low coeflicient of digestibility. As a means of 

 affording, in the ration, the bulk and volume necessary for a 

 physiological distention of the digestive tract, to maintain it 

 normally functional, timothy is ideal. Horses like it, if not too 

 ripe, but as a source of nutriment it is inferior to the hay of 

 clover, alfalfa, and other legumes. 



Legumes, with their extensive leaf surfaces, are much richer 

 in digestible nutrients but more difiicult to properly cure. When 

 im]^roperly cured they are unfit to be fed to horses. The causal 

 relation between clover hay and heaves has been fairly well 

 estal)lished. It is alleged not to be due to the dust, in general, 

 with which clover hay is likely to be filled, but to a specific 

 fungus, the growth of which is peculiar to legumes. It is true 

 that the history of most cases of heaves reveals clover hay in the 

 ration, although there is notliing remarkable about this, as tlie 

 majority of horses are so fed. On the whole, we cannot afford to 

 count clover-mixed hay out of the ration of the average horse. 

 But in view of the possibility that may result from feeding it, 

 we should consider carefully the quality, and guard the quan- 



