78 AMERICAN STABLE GUIDE. 



it occasionally does, we are bound to decide in favor of 

 well-founded experience. 



We are told by foreign authority, that for a carriage or 

 saddle horse, half a peck of sound oats, weighing forty-five 

 pounds to the bushel, and eighteen pounds of good hay are 

 sufficient, and with less hay an addition of a quarter of a 

 peck more of oats will be required. It is added, however, 

 that a horse required to work harder should have more 

 both of oats and hay. 



We will not presume to doubt the all-sufficiency of the 

 above quantities, but can, without fear of contradiction 

 assert that the same amount fed in bulk, will not keep a 

 sixteen-hand carriage horse in good condition and working 

 order in Philadelphia. With us, even a small fourteen- 

 and-one-half-haud horse is not considered fit for good driv- 

 ing, unless he can consume twelve quarts of oats and from 

 ten to twel\«e pounds of hay. In Great Britain, the oats 

 are better, and the streets and roads are good, which may 

 account for some of the difference. The climate and per- 

 haps the constitution of the horses are better than with us, 

 and if such be the case, it will also help to account for so 

 small an allowance of oats to carriage horses. To keep 

 carriage horses in good working condition, the chafi" or hay- 

 cutter and corn-meal are found to be as indispensable in 

 the private stable of the gentleman as they are in the sta- 

 ble of the drayman, or of the railroad company with their 

 hard-worked horses. 



The following will illustrate still further the unreliability 



