120 VETEEINAEY HYGIENE 



with boiled and succulent food may be suitable for the slow 

 work they perform, but quite unsuited to town work. 

 These foods fatten, but fat horses are not required when 

 work has to be done, in fact the fat horse is the first to fail, 

 for fat and ' condition ' he at opposite poles. 



SUBSTITUTIONAL DIETING. 



Immense saving can be effected, without in the least 

 degree imperilling the value of the diet, by feeding on a 

 mixture of grains, the mixture depending on the market 

 price. The grain most commonly used in these cases as 

 an equivalent of oats is maize. 



There is no department of horse management where 

 practical veterinary work has more appealed to the com- 

 mercial instincts of the nation, than the considerable saving 

 effected, with no loss of efficiency, by feeding on a mixture 

 of foods. It is the essence of economical and efficient 

 stable management, and is entirely due to the veterinary 

 profession.* 



There are several systems of forming tables for substi- 

 tutional diets but we prefer the old one of Boussingault's 

 based upon the nitrogen contained in the food. In the 

 table opposite only the digestible proteid in each food sub- 

 stance is shown ; this information simply gives the rela- 

 tive richness of the foods, to ascertain whether any economy 

 is effected the market rates must be consulted. 



We learn from the table that oats, maize, barley and rye 

 are nearly equivalents and this is found to be so in practice. 

 We learn that bean straw and hay are nearly equivalents, 

 and that five parts of oat straw are equal to one of clover 

 hay. In fact the table can be analysed so as to provide all 

 information likely to be needed for substitutional dieting, 

 though this is of no value unless the market rate of the 

 proposed substitution is cheaper. 



* The pioneer in this work was the late Mr. Charles Hunting of 

 Durham ; his publications on ' Food and Work ' and ' The Feeding and 

 Management of CoUierj' Horses ' are models of common-sense, clear 

 reasoning, and capacity for observation. 



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