605 
TlUlhaiion of Sfran' an Food fur Srocl'. 
“ As a rule, the old wasteful system of giving horses hay in racks, as well 
as the Lincolnshire practice of feeding on oat sheaves cut into chaff, has gone 
out of favour, and the best managers cut up hay and straw and give their 
horses ground corn or crushed oats, sometimes hran or pollard, with a 
portion of pulped roots added to the dry food.” 
la Vol. X4ftV„ 2nd series, 1888, page 447, the system cf 
feeding of Mr. John Treadwell, Upper Winchendon, Bucks, 
is described to be — hay and straw chaff, with one bushel of 
ground maize, half a bushel of oats, and half a peck of crushed 
malt, per horse per week; that of Mr. T. H. Hutchinson, 
Catterick, Yorks, as chaffed oat straw, ground oats, bran, a few 
roots, and 1 lb. of linseed cake ; that of Mr. H. Simmonds, 
Bearwood, Wokingham, when horses are in fully active work, 
as two bushels of oats, half a bushel of split peas, with two trusses 
of hay and straw chaffed per head per week ; that of Mr. Gilbert 
Murray, Elvaston, Derby, as from G to 8 lb. per day of 
mixed meals, ground together with cut hay and straw ; that of 
Mr. John Watts, steward to Lord Moreton, as straw chaff with 
some hay and two bushels of crushed oats per horse per week ; 
and that of Mr. J. Brockie, Carmarthenshire, to be as inucli 
straw and swedes as the horses can eat, with one and a half 
bushel of oats each per w’eek. In the same volume, page 4G5, 
Mr. Hunter Pringle says : — 
“ As hay is a severe crop on our poor light lands, I do not make much. 
I always have a little, hut the acreage under hay is the lowest possible. I 
chaff it all ; my work horses are allowed some during times of extra hard 
work ; at other times they get only oat straw. I may say that on this 
farm four horses, each pair working a double-furrow plough, have to worlc 
60 acres of land for roots and 125 for corn. The work is alwajs well done 
and the horses are always fat and fresh.” 
If the hay employed be only of second-class or third-class 
quality, horses are just as well without it, especially if a few 
chopped carrots or mangel-wurzel, or a little silage or green 
malt, can be intermixed with the straw chaff. It is always 
advisable that such succulent foods should be incorporated with 
the manger dietary wLen chaffed straw, instead of chaffed hay, 
has to be largely resorted to. Green malt is very easily pre- 
pared, and a great many old stablekeepers have in the past been 
accustomed to resort to it. The process is simply that of steep- 
ing barley in vats until it sprouts and then spreading it on a 
floor for some days previous to use, during which some of the 
sproutings develop into green blades, whence the name “ green 
malt.” The cost of thus converting barley into malt is very 
little indeed, and it is easy enough to understand that when 
intermixed with straw chaff the latter w'ould be made more 
VOL. HI. T. s. — 12 3 B 
