DENTITION AND DIET. 13) 
mechanical form and condition of the former; their chemical com. 
position remain about the same.” 
THE EFFECTS OF VARIOUS KINDS OF Foon. 
It ie customary, in some stables, to feed horses, nearly all the 
year rouna, with what is known as “cut feed,” which is composed 
of cut hay, meal, shorts, salt, and considerable water; the whole 
is mixed together, and served out, sometimes, without regard to 
quantity. This kind of food might, and sometimes does, agree 
with horses, but it is not right to feed them, year after year, on 
the same, for the reason just set forth. Another reason for ob- 
jecting to this food is, that, in the stables alluded to, we hear 
of a great many eases of tympanitis and flatulent colic (diseases 
somewhat identical), arising, no doubt, from the presence of so 
large a quantity of water as some persons are in the habit of 
using. It saturates the food, and retards digestion. Not only 
this, but when dry food, highly charged with water, enters the 
stomach, the temperature of the latter causes the food to swell— 
increase in bulk—and distends that organ, and also favors fer- 
mentation instead of digestion; hence arises flatulency. We do 
not, however, mean to contend that such food is at all times the 
direct cause of indigestion, colic, etc., because many stablers are 
ready to testify that they have fed the same for many years with- 
out any apparent inconvenience to their horses; but we contend 
that it acts indirectly in the manner alluded to; and, although 
some horses may “ get used to it,” and others, having wonderful 
digestive organs, assimilate it, yet the day of reckoning may not 
he far off. Wecontend that water taken with food always retards 
digestion. The proper solvents of the food are the gastric fluids, 
and the horse has abundant facilities for supplying the requisite 
quantity. An ordinary horse is said to secrete, while feeding, 
fluid, of salivial and gastric characters, at the rate of one gallon 
per hour—enough, we should judge, to saturate a common meal; 
therefore the water is not needed. We urge no objection against 
the morc rational custom of merely sprinkling the food with salted 
water, in view of absorbing dust, which often abounds in inferior 
hay, but do seriously object to the practice of using a large quan- 
tity of culd water in the preparation of food for horses, 
From experiments made by scientific men. it has been ascer- 
