386 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



be swallowed with very little mastication, while the dry 

 meal must be masticated till the saliva saturates it before 

 it can be swallowed, and the saliva assists digestion. It is, 

 therefore, in better condition for digestion when fed dry 

 than wet. But four of those who had lost horses by 

 feeding meal alone, when they changed the system and 

 fed the meal upon cut hay, moistened, so that both must 

 be eaten together, had no further losses or even illness of 

 their horses. 



In our experience of about thirty years in feeding work 

 horses, no ill effects have arisen from feeding corn-meal, 

 ground as fine as burr millstones can properly do it, when 

 mixed with cut hay or straw. "We have had cases of colic, 

 but it was always traced to carelessness of the feeder and 

 violation of orders in not mixing the meal with cut hay. 

 We have fed horses, from four years old to twenty, upon 

 various concentrated grains, ground into fine meal, and they 

 were always in good health when the rule of mixing fine 

 meal with cut hay or straw was strictly adhered to. 



The following fatal case occurred : In our absence an 

 acquaintance called, on his return from a pleasant drive of 

 a hundred miles west, in June. Putting his fine, sixteen - 

 hand, iron-gray horse into the barn, piloted only by a little 

 boy of seven, he was proceeding to give his horse a good, 

 round measure of fine corn-meal, when the boy warned 

 him that it would make his horse sick if he did not mix it 

 without hay; and he replied, "I will risk it." Starting 

 an hour later to drive eight miles, he was scarcely able to 

 get his horse that distance, and he died before morning. 

 Speaking of it afterwards, he said : " The boy warned 

 me, but I was not humble enough to learn wisdom from 

 babes, and I lost my horse." But he consoled himself 

 with the reflection that this experience saved him other 

 horses afterwards. 



The universality of corn everywhere, and its excellent 

 quality as a fattening food and for keeping horses with 



