FEEDING. 97 



and quantity. It exhausts the land, and after a year or 

 two kills every other grass that may have been sown with 

 it. So exhausting to the soil and so selfish is it in its 

 growth, that were it not for the great demand for it in all 

 large cities for the exclusive use of horses, in a short time 

 not a blade of it would be grown. Farmers who are in 

 the habit of selling hay from their farms for spending 

 money, are not the persons to give up the growing of that 

 which is in demand at so good a price, even though the 

 land should suffer. 



Timothy hay is, in our estimation, not only over-estimated 

 by stablemen, but more costly by twenty to thirty per cent, 

 than other varieties of hay equally nutritious and more 

 healthy for horses that do not work more than one day in 

 seven. 



Timothy hay should be cut before the seeds are ripe, for 

 in them lies much of the value as hay. Timothy without 

 the seeds is the poorest of feed. The stalk should be of a 

 greenish hue (not dry, hard, brittle, brown), and of a good 

 sound sweet smell, free from dust, and all the better if 

 mixed with clover. This latter consideration is good evi- 

 dence that the land upon which it was grown was not so 

 far exhausted that the clover had died out from among the 

 timothy, and that the land had not been burdened by a 

 continued, or from-year-to-year crop of timothy. 



The quantity of timothy fed to horses varies with the 

 size, age, work, and make of the animal. Horses of slow 

 work, and employed ten to twelve hours per day, will eat 



