538 Breediwj and Management of Horses on a Farm. 
canal. To enumerate the secondary effects which mav occur 
from the same cause would be to present a catalogue of perhaps 
all the chronic and many of the inflammatory diseases to which 
any animal is subject. According to hereditary or acquired dis- 
position of any organ to disease, so will it become obnoxious to 
morbid changes from a long-continued habit of over- feeding ; and 
thus in one the eyes, in another the brain, in a third the liver or 
lungs, and in a fourth the stomach and intestines may be affected 
from this cause alone. To this fact may be objected the daily 
examples of animals of everv breed that are rendered extremely 
fat, and still not to all appearance diseased, by a very large allow- 
ance of food ; but it must be remembered that the stomach is 
capable, like every other part of the body, of continuing undue 
exertion for perhaps a considerable time before those morbid 
results to which I have alluded become manifest, and almost all 
animals destined for food are killed so soon as they have acquired 
that degree of fatness which thev are capable of attaining, without 
being kept long enough to give time for any organ to become 
attacked by actual disease. At all events, this is the case with 
most of those animals that furnish us with food, although some 
certainly do die while undergoing the fattening process, and many 
are probably when killed either actually the subjects of disease 
which the butcher's knowledge of morbid appearances is either 
unable to detect, or, if sufficiently manifest to him, it is his in- 
terest to conceal. 
The natural action of the stomach in preparing the food for 
digestion being understood, it becomes our duty so to apportion 
the horse's aliment that no part of it be destitute of the gastric- 
juice, without the aid of which it must become a source of irri- 
tation ; and inasmuch as the deposition of fat is productive of in- 
activity, no greater quantity of food should ever be allowed him 
tlian he is capable of well digesting, and than is sufficient to 
maintain his strength and increase his proportions while growing. 
The stomach, like all other parts of the body, cannot be everlast- 
ingly at work ; it requires repose at inten als in order to perform 
its natural functions with energy, and on this account it is highly 
improper, and destructive of health, to allow the horse access to 
food of some sort or other at all hours of the day, especially while 
in his stable, where exercise is unnecessary to obtain his food. 
For this reason no greater portion should ever be placed before 
him than he seems to have a desire for, whether it be hay or corn ; 
and an interval of four hours shf»nld always be allowed to elapse 
between each meal. Less time tlian this is insufficient for di- 
gestion ; and if food be taken into the stomach while it is em- 
j)lovcd in preparing a former menl for undergoing that process, it 
must be clear to every one either that its powers must be over- 
