ARTICLES USED AS FOOD. 187 



ignorant that any kind of grain, when improperly given, will 

 pro.hice the same effect. Maize does it more readily [per- 

 haps on account of its greater amount of carbon or the fat- 

 forming principle]. 



Rye is used in Germany, but generally in the shape of bread 

 made from the whole flour and bran ; and it is not unusual, 

 in travelling through some parts of that country, and of Hol- 

 land, to see the postillions help themselves and their horses 

 from the same loaf.* 



Beans. — There are several varieties of the bean in use as 

 horse-food, but I do not know that one is better than another. 

 The small plump bean is preferred to the large shrivelled kind. 

 Whichever be used, the beans should be old, sweet, and 

 sound. New beans are indigestible and flatulent ; they pro- 

 duce colic, and founder very readily. They should be at least 

 a year old. Beans are often ill-harvested ; and when musty 

 or mouldy, though quite sweet internally, horses do not like 

 them. They are often attacked by an insect which consumes 

 much of the flour, and destroys the vitality of the rest. The 

 ravages of the insect are plain enough. The bean is ex- 

 cavated, light, brittle, and bitter tasted. A few in this state 

 may do no harm ; but when the beans are generally infected, 

 it is not likely that they are eaten with impunity, and very 

 often itle horse refuses them altogether. Damp, musty, ill- 

 kept beans, though old, are as flatulent as those which are 

 new. All kinds are constipating. 



Though in very general use for horses, beans are not so ex- 

 tensively employed as oats. According to the chymists, they 

 contain more nutriment ; and in practice it is universally al- 

 lowed that beans are much the stronger of the two. The com- 

 parison, however, is almost always made in reference to a 

 measured quantity. A bushel of beans is, beyond all doubt, 

 more nutritious than a bushel of oats, but it is questionable 

 whether a pound of beans is stronger than a pound of oats. 

 Beans weigh about sixty-three pounds per bushel, and if given 

 in an oat measure, the horse may be getting nearly double al- 

 lowance. This, I am persuaded, often happens, and hence 

 arise those complaints about the heating, inflammatory nature 

 of beans ; [they are constipating and their heating quality is 

 secondary, by inducing fever as a consequence of costiveness.] 

 The horse becomes plethoric ; the groom says the humors 

 are flying about him. It is very likely that he would be in 



* British Husbandry, vol. i., p. 146. 



