FEEDING HORSES AND HOUNDS. 
579 
great difference in the consumption of various kennels depends. 
Five tons of meal will keep from twenty to twenty-five couples of 
hounds, with a sufficiency of flesh, a year ; but if it is not half- 
boiled, double that quantity will scarcely suffice : in fact, in a half 
crude state, hounds will never thrive upon it. 
Indian corn has been tried, but I apprehend without success. 
Some years ago it was introduced into the Worcestershire kennels; 
but every Worcestershire man of that day will attest its failure. 
I have heard that in Mr. Selby Lowndes’s kennel it was used last 
season and approved of ; but last season was scarcely a sufficient 
test — for all hounds were compelled to lie idle during more than 
half of it. In the summer it may do; and from what I have seen 
of it during that period, I should feel disposed to recommend it ; 
but when cub-hunting commences 1 should return to oatmeal. It 
has, I understand, also been used at Rome for the hounds which 
Lord Chesterfield took there ; but that is no argument for its 
applicability in England during the winter season, though it may 
in reference to its use in the summer. The reason is manifest : 
there iff less oxygen in the air during summer than winter, less in 
Italy than in England; and Indian corn is one of those seeds which 
produce a decidedly favourable influence in the formation of fat, 
for which M. Liebig is my authority; and every master of hounds 
who regards the condition of his pack (and where is there one who 
does not?) will seek that food which has the effect of producing 
muscle instead of fat. All the attention that can possibly be 
bestowed on hounds in or out of kennel, whether as it regards 
exercise or other minutiae, will be useless, unless they are supplied 
with food suitable to their constitutions. 
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The importance of walking hounds out in the grass court after 
feeding will be collected from these remarks : it not only affords 
them an opportunity of relieving their bodies, but they are enabled 
to inspire pure air, containing its utmost amount of oxygen, far 
superior to that which they acquire in a lodging room, where, lying 
crowded in heaps on their beds, the surrounding atmosphere is 
contaminated by their own expirations and the exhalations from 
their bodies, which, combined with other causes, are fruitful 
sources of kennel lameness. 
Although barley has been introduced into some kennels, it is 
never likely to be used to any extent. The nutritive properties of 
this grain consist of mucilage, gluten, and sugar : when used for 
kennel food, it must not be boiled, but simply scalded as it is wanted, 
for the saccharine principle very soon establishes an acetous fer- 
mentation — one of the causes of its inapplicability for the purpose of 
