RESEARCHES INTO THE CAUSES OE BLINDNESS. 351 
cooked potatoes, or the residue after these vegetables have been 
distilled ; and it is lucky for the poor mare if in bad weather she 
is not turned out to bad or scanty pasture. Many persons never 
give their horses oats, and very seldom good hay : this is set apart 
for the milch-cows. 
After the birth, the foal shares with its mother the parsimonious 
regimen and utter neglect which it was subject to during the whole 
period of its gestation. It is weaned at about six or seven months 
old, and, up to that time, has no other nourishment than the milk 
of its impoverished mother and what few scraps of fodder it has 
picked up here and there by chance. From this time until it is 
two years or two years and a half old it is turned out to grass dur- 
ing the grazing season, and, in the intervals, fed in the same way 
as the mares during their pregnancy. Oats it never sees. 
About this time, that is to say, when it reaches two years and 
a half or three years, it is used in tilling land, and during the win- 
ter or dead season employed in drawing the pit-coal that is derived 
from Prussia, and not far from Sarrebruck ; consequently this labour 
is far too hard for an enfeebled creature like this, whose organization 
is weak and as yet imperfect. It is not better fed than when em- 
ployed for agricultural purposes. Its food consists of green meat 
in the summer, and straw, middling hay, clover, lucern, bran, and 
cooked potatoes in the winter. Very few persons allow their 
horses any oats. 
In this country the lucern is usually very badly got up, for they 
do not cut it dry, or bring it home properly. The carts which go 
to and from these coal pits usually take the fodder for the horses 
with them, and it is here we have most frequently seen it. It is 
generally dirty, covered with a species of mildew, and the fibres or 
stalks are thin and shrivelled, as if it had been dried by a burning 
sun while yet moist. It may easily be conceived that such food 
does not abound in nutritive qualities. 
The stables, too, are by no means what they should be. They 
are generally low, small, narrow, out of repair, or so carelessly 
built as to admit all the inclemency of the weather. The horses 
are always placed side by side. The dung is often suffered to 
accumulate for a fortnight or three weeks at a time ; and the air 
becomes perfectly vitiated by the decomposition of animal matter. 
Lastly, the animals are ill-used by the carters in every possible 
way. They rarely hear a kind word, but in its stead receive 
blows from the handle of the whip or a stick, or lashes over every 
part of their bodies. 
A distinguished agriculturist, Mr. Almayer,has frequently assured 
us, that many of the diseases that bring on blindness are produced 
by this brutal treatment. 
