FEEDING HORSES. 379 



used the year round. If these companies would substitute 

 clover hay for timothy, corn-meal would make a well- 

 balanced ration. The clover would make up for the 

 deficiency of the corn-meal in muscle-sustaining food. 

 Clover is rejected because it is liable to be dusty, which 

 may develop heaves; but this fear is groundless under the 

 plan now adopted of moistening the cut hay and mixing 

 the meal with it. It is fed in a damp condition, and, 

 therefore, no dust can be present to affect the lung. Clover 

 hay is not properly appreciated as a food for horses. It has 

 a higher value than timothy, and is usually sold $2 to $3 

 per ton lower in market. 



There are, probably, fifty thousand horses fed in our 

 cities, for railroad and omnibus lines, on a ration very 

 similar to these described. And if we go back forty years, 

 we find that the Germans and Hungarians fed a ration 

 yery similar. 



Mr. C. L. Fleischman gives the ration used upon the 

 manor of Alcsuth, in Hungary, about 1840. Horses at 

 labor were fed 12 quarts of heavy oats, 6 Ibs. of hay, 4 Ibs. 

 of oat-straw, and 5 Ibs. of steamed chaff. This is very 

 similar to the London Omnibus Company's ration, being 

 about the same weight as the ground oats, but less valuable, 

 because unground; yet the steamed chaff would compensate 

 for this. 



The ration of all corn-meal and hay is not to be approved, 

 except in winter, and not wholly then. The horse is used 

 simply for his muscle, and corn is especially a fattening 

 food, and not the best to replace wasted muscle. It is 

 most admirably adapted as a respiratory food producing 

 animal heat and fat and requires to be combined with 

 more nitrogenous food. And a careful examination of the 

 facts relating to the health and durability of horses, where 

 corn-meal is fed almost wholly for grain, will show that 

 they do not last so long as where oats are fed for the 



