THE CARE OF HORSES. 297 
work of the bay mare on exactly half the food. This 
bay mare has another peculiarity, she bolts her oats 
without stopping to chew them. To correct this, an 
old bridle is always kept hanging at the door of the 
stall, and when her oats are given to her the bit is 
slipped in her mouth. It would be well also, in the 
case of such horses, when kept in loose boxes, to 
have a manger made in the shape of a long narrow 
trough, running the length of the stall. If the oats 
were scattered over this manger, an additional hin- 
drance to bolting them would be provided. A “slow 
feeding” manger has been patented, and is now on 
the market, which accomplishes the same object by 
doling out the oats through a small aperture. 
Ground oats can sometimes be fed with advantage, 
but a horse that bolts his grain is apt to be a “soft” 
horse, and to feed him on ground oats would aggravate 
this tendency. Not long since, I happened to take 
up a disquisition on pigs, and my eye fell upon this 
passage: “A hog ought to eat his food up clean, but 
he ought not to make a mad rush for the trough; 
that shows an inferior constitution.” I believe that 
this remark is equally true of horses. 
After what I have said of the two animals just 
mentioned, the reader will hardly need to be told 
that the bay mare seldom if ever requires a bran 
mash; whereas the black mare has one twice a week 
through the winter, when grass is not obtainable. 
The office of a bran mash is to loosen the bowels, cool 
the blood, and purify the system. At the close of a 
long, hot day’s work, give a horse a good cleaning, a 
bran mash, and a soft bed, and it is wonderful how 
fresh he will come out in the morning. And here —at 
