Breedhvj and Management of Homes on a Farm. 525 
especially while growing, for stint in the article of food is quite 
as bad as giving too much with a view to urge Nature to her 
greatest exertions — a species of mismanagement to which I shall 
presently advert, and which is frequently the foundation of many 
dangerous inflammatory diseases. In most farm stables that I 
have ever seen, no attention whatever seems to be paid to the 
quantity of hay allowed to each horse, but the carters are allowed 
to take as much from the rick-yard as they please, and to give it 
to their teams ad libitum. The least trouble being to fill the 
racks as full as they can stuff them, they are consequently gene- 
rally crammed with hay to their fullest extent, so as to be ready 
for the horses at any and every period of the day at which they 
may reach their stable. A great quantity is of course pulled 
down, or blown ujion, and comparatively wasted, which is the 
only species of damage that ever strikes the farmer as occurrmg 
from this system, as he never takes into consideration, or possibly 
understands, that a constant supply of food cannot fail to dete- 
riorate the good condition of his horses, and, instead of strength- 
ening, only tends to enfeeble them. 
I shall now explain the reason why a superabundance of food 
is injurious instead of beneficial to the horse. Unlike those 
animals that are destined for the butcher, we do not wish him to 
become extremely fat, but rather desire to keep him in that state 
which is termed " condition," and which implies the possession of 
the greatest possible health and vigour, coupled with a certain 
acquisition of flesh, or muscle, but not of fat, except to such an 
extent as will preserve the roundness of the different parts of the 
body and conduce to beauty of appearance, which the horse in- 
tended for sale should possess to the greatest extent that his form 
is capable of attaining. The ox, the sheep, and the hog — animals 
that are fattened for the purpose of being converted into food, 
acquire, both from feeding to repletion and from the enjoyment 
of perfect repose, a certain weight within a given time, but cannot 
be considered during the process of fattening in a healthy condi- 
tion, the circulation of the blood being sluggish, and their nervous 
energy almost extinct, from the torpor produced from eating to 
excess. How is this torpor induced ? I have already shown that 
the stomach, when extremely full, by pressing upon the diaphragm 
diminishes the area of the chest, thus offering an impediment both 
to respiration and to the circulation of the blood through the 
lungs and heart, which actions are in fact dependent one upon 
the other, respiration being more frequent in proportion as the 
circulation is more hurried, a familiar example of which may be 
noticed in the ])anting of any animal after severe exertion. 
Now in order that any animal should continue to exist, it is 
necessary that the blood in its passage through some portion of 
