FEEDING HORSES. 391 



The stage horses are fed on cut hay and corn-meal, wet, 

 and mixed in the proportion of abo.ut one Ib. of hay to 

 two Ibs. of meal, a ratio adopted rather for mechanical than 

 physiological reasons, as this is all the meal that can be 

 made to adhere to the hay. The animals eat this mixture 

 from a deep manger. The New York Consolidated Stage 

 Company use a very small quantity of salt. They think 

 it causes horses to urinate too freely. They find horses 

 do not eat so much when worked too hard. The large 

 horses eat more than the small ones. Prefer a horse of 

 1,000 to 1,100 pounds weight. If too small, they get poor, 

 and cannot draw a stage; if too large, they ruin their 

 feet, and their shoulders grow stiff and shrink. The 

 principal objection to large horses is not so much the in- 

 creased amount of food required, as the fact they are soon 

 used up by wear. They would prefer for feed a mixture 

 of half corn and half oats, if it were not more expensive. 

 Horses do not keep fat as well on oats alone, if at hard 

 labor, as on corn-meal, or a mixture of the two. 



" Straw is best for bedding. If salt hay is used, horses 

 eat it, as not more than a bag of 200 pounds of salt is used 

 in 3 months. Glauber salt is allowed occasionally as a 

 laxative in the spring of the year, and the animals eat it 

 voraciously. If corn is too new, it is mixed with an equal 

 weight of rye bran, which prevents scouring. Jersey 

 yellow corn is best, and horses like it best. The hay is all 

 cut, mixed with meal, and fed moist. No difference is 

 made between day and night work. The travel is con- 

 tinuous, except in warm weather, when it is sometimes 

 divided, and an interval of rest allowed. In cold weather 

 the horses are watered four times a day, in the stable, 

 and not at all on the road. In warm weather, four times a 

 day in the stables, and are allowed to sip on the middle of 

 the route. 



" The amount that the company exact from each horse 

 is all that he can do. In the worst of the traveling, they 



