418 
CURSORY REMARKS. 
Then the oats — they are generally of a very inferior description 
to our own, but not so much exposed to the weather as the hay 
is, although it seems to me that a Frenchman too often troubles 
himself but little in his selection of a good sample of horse com. 
Oats are oats with him, and the price is his chief consideration. 
Beans are by no means of general use in France — far from it; 
in fact, I have never seen them in the stables of French post- 
horses since I have resided in that country, although that is no 
reason why they may not be given. Mr. Spooner says, he be- 
lieves, that, on the Continent, they do not give rack food ; and 
the President, to whom he appeals to sanction his hypothesis, 
asserts, that u the fodder is always cut, and carried in bags 
from place to place.” Now, I have never seen a bushel, or a 
bag, of cut fodder for horses since I have been in France, nor 
have I more than once heard the chaff-box going. But observe 
this : — Every horse in work in France eats as much or more of 
clean wheaten straw as he does of hay ! Query ; Is this one 
cause of the absence of broken wind ? I am inclined to think 
it is. 
Again : What says Mr. Smith ? “ The treatment (palliative 
he means) of a broken-winded horse is very simple. It consists 
in keeping the stomach and bowels free from distention when 
the animal is sent to work.” Nothing in theory and in practice 
can be more true than this, and it applies to the sound-winded 
horse as well. The racer is set on the muzzle the night previous 
to his race ; the hunter is kept somewhat short of hay and water 
the day before he is ridden with hounds ; and the fast coach- 
horse never knows what a full belly is, unless he eats his litter. 
But the French horse, both coach and post-horse as well, always 
goes out with absolutely distended sides from the contents of his 
belly , although, as I have already stated, he very soon gets rid 
of the cumbrous load of bran, hay, oats, straw, and water. An 
intimate friend of mine, now resident in Calais, one of the best 
shots of the day, will corroborate this fact to any inquirer. He 
has been for many years in the habit of going to Montreuil, 
a town on the road to Paris, for the convenience of shooting, 
two or three times in the season, his shooting ground lying at 
ten miles distance. This he always rides in an hour , and the 
innkeeper, who supplies him with horses, is aware of that fact ; 
nevertheless his ostler invariably leads the horses he is about to 
more cultivated than it is on land that suits it (and that is land which will 
grow nothing else that would pay for cultivating), after the statements 
made public by Dr. Richardson, of its produce, which amounts to nine tons 
per acre. In Sir H. Davy’s table of the respective nutritive properties of 
grasses, only two exceed those of florin cut in the winter. 
