THE CARE OF HORSES. 301 
With a permanent watering trough in the stall, there 
must be danger of the water becoming stale, and also 
of the horse’s drinking from it when he comes in 
heated by his work. 
The next best thing to having water constantly 
before the horse at his meals is to give it to him 
frequently, four times a day being the minimum. 
Should he be watered before or after eating? All 
the books say before, but in this country the almost. 
universal practice is to give it afterward. The the- 
ory of the books is, that, when a horse is watered after 
his feed of grain, the water tends to wash the latter 
out of his stomach, where it should digest, to the gut 
or second stomach. But it seems to be more natural 
for the horse, as it is for man, to drink after eating 
rather than before, provided he cannot drink while 
eating. A horse who is both hungry and thirsty will 
refuse water until he has had food. There is another 
consideration which I have never seen mentioned, 
namely, that a horse is likely to eat his grain more 
slowly, and to chew it better, if he is thirsty, than if 
he has just been watered. My own way is to water 
him after he has eaten his grain, and before he has 
his hay. At Palo Alto the horses are watered two. 
hours after eating. Whatever the system adopted, 
there is one time at which almost all horses like to 
drink, and that is about nine or ten at night, when the 
stable is, or should be, visited by the groom or master, 
the beds arranged if they need it, surcingles looked 
to, and the horses watered. 
As to watering on the road, very good horsemen 
differ widely in their practice, some eschewing water- 
ing troughs almost altogether, whereas others drive 
