384 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



my experiment. His were engaged in lumbering, and 

 often hauled heavy loads. He fed 1 6 Ibs. of pea-meal per 

 horse, in three feeds. Within six weeks two of his horses 

 had severe attacks of colic, and both of the others had to 

 be treated for constipation. The writer then prevailed 

 upon him to feed the pea-meal with one bushel of cut hay, 

 in the manner above stated, and in a few weeks they were 

 all in apparent health and able to do efficient work. The 

 effect was so favorable, that he continued to feed meal 

 whether of peas, corn or other grain, mixed with cut hay 

 and told the author that he never had a case of colic 

 afterwards. 



CORN-MEAL FOB HOUSES. 



Corn-meal has long been a staple food for horses, as well 

 as other stock in the United States, and is now largely 

 purchased in England and Europe as a part of the ration 

 for work-horses. It is quite as concentrated as bean-meal, 

 and more heating in its nature, because it has a larger pro- 

 portion of carbo-hydrates than beans, peas, oats or barley, 

 and is comparatively deficient in muscle-forming elements. 

 -Corn, when ground into fine meal (the best condition for 

 feeding) and moistened, becomes very plastic and adheres 

 into a solid mass, not easily penetrated by any liquid. 

 When corn-meal is masticated by a horse it becomes satu- 

 rated with saliva and takes the form of a plastic adhesive 

 mass, and in this form goes into the stomach of the horse. 

 It is obvious that the muscular movements of the stomach 

 can only move or roll this mass about, but cannot separate 

 or loosen its particles so as to render it sufficiently porous 

 for the circulation and operation of the gastric juice, it 

 is for this reason that whole corn, or that coarsely ground, 

 may be fed alone to a horse with less danger of colic or 

 other diseases induced by a fevered stomach, because in the 

 form of cracked kernels it cannot adhere into such a solid, 

 plastic mass, and what is not digested will be passed in the 



