PRINCIPLES OF FEEDING. 237 



sensation can not be the same as that of hunger, otherwise 

 the horse would devour his grain. While he has plenty of 

 grain, and plenty of litter, the diminished allowance of hay- 

 is borne with impunity. [The bowels need distension ; hay 

 contains a large amount of woody fibre ; this produces dis- 

 tension, and is ejected as fecal matter. Without distension 

 and abundant fecal matter, there can be no health.] 



When sufficiency is not obtained in any shape, the horse 

 loses appetite, emaciates ; his bowels are confined : his 

 flank sadly tucked up — his belly indeed almost entirely 

 disappears ; in general he drinks little water, and when 

 he takes much he is apt to purge. His belly is often 

 noisy, rumbling of the bowels ; apparently containing a good 

 deal of air, which occasionally produces slight colicky pains. 

 These horses are said, and I iDelieve truly said, to be very 

 liable to crib-biting and w^ind-sucking. It is certain that 

 the diseases are exceedingly rare among those that live on 

 bulky food. 



When the ordinary fodder, then, is very dear, its place 

 must be supplied by some other which will produce a whole- 

 some distension, though it may not yield so much nutriment. 

 Straw or roots, either or both, may be used in such cases. 

 The excessively tucked-up flank, and the horse's repeated 

 efforts to eat his litter, show when his food is not of sufficient 

 bulk. 



When work demands the use of condensed food in a horse 

 that has been accustomed for some time to bulkier articles, 

 the change should be made by degrees. Coming from grass, 

 or the straw-yard, the horse, for a time, requires more fodder 

 than it would be proper to allow him at his work. 



Hard Food. — For a long time it has been almost univer- 

 sally supposed that the greatest and most lasting vigor could 

 not be obtained without an ample allowance of hard, substan- 

 tial food, such as raw oats and beans with hay. But within 

 a few years there have been several attempts to show that 

 these articles are improved by cooking. It has been argued 

 that steaming or boiling partially digests the food, or renders 

 it more easy of digestion. 



It is nonsense to say that cooking is digestion. The 

 stomach is not a boiler. It does its work in a way of its 

 own, not to be imitated by any culinary process. 



Food which has been softened by steaming, maceration, or 

 boiling, may possibly be more quickly digested. The nutri- 

 tive matter may be more rapidly and more easily extracted 



