PRACTICE OF FEEDING. 255 



forty feeds go as far as fifty of the oat and bean mixture. The 

 fodder, clover, and rye-grass hay, is given in the racks without 

 limitation. Some hay, and occasionally straw, is cut into 

 chaff for mixing with the grain, which is not bruised. In win- 

 ter, delicate horses get carrots. As summer approaches, the 

 boiled food is given up. For a while it is given every other 

 night, then twice a week, then once, and at last it is abandoned 

 altogether. In autumn it is introduced in the same gradual 

 manner ; grass is very little used. It is consumed chiefly 

 by the defective or spare horses, who get a little only while it 

 is good. 



Although the grain is given at regular hours, and in meas- 

 ured quantities, the horses receive as much as they will eat. 

 Some do not consume their allowance, and that which is left 

 is given to others of keener appetite, or put into the boiler, and 

 less is given out at the next feeding hour. All the horses have 

 full work, many of them for part of the year running sixteen 

 miles for six days a week at eight miles per hour in two sta- 

 ges. The stables are good, and the stud is visited by a vet- 

 erinarian every morning. The horses always stand on litter. 

 Their legs are not washed in cold weather. In hot summers 

 the horses are bathed all over after work. 



The late Mr. Peter Mein of Glasgow tried several modes 

 of feeding. In winter he employed hay, and oat or wheat- 

 straw, as fodder ; oats, beans, barley, wheat, and turnips, as 

 grain. The fodder was all cut, the raw grain all bruised, the 

 beans were given whole ; the wheat, barley, and turnips, were 

 usually boiled. 



The horses were fed eight times every day ; the first feed 

 was given at five in the morning, the last at ten in the evening. 

 The daily allowance to each horse used to be eight pounds of 

 fodder, and sixteen of grain. The fodder was one half straw, 

 another half hay ; the grain, three fourths oats, and one fourth 

 beans. They were always mixed, neither grain nor fodder 

 being given alone. During cold weather, one feed of this mix- 

 ture was withheld, and replaced by an equal quantity of boiled 

 food, which consisted of beans, barley, and chaff; Swedish 

 turnips were also used, but no carrots nor any bran, except to 

 sick horses. The cooked food was given as the first after 

 work ; horses that seemed very fond of it got another at night. 

 In general, each horse got only one ration of boiled food in 

 the twenty-four hours. Some grass was used in summer; 

 while young it was given alone ; as it got old, hard, and dry, 

 it was cut and mixed with the chaff and grain. When old 



