AND BOILKD GRAIN AS FOOD FOR FARM -HOllSKS. 313 
Highland Society being to ascertain “ the comparative merits of 
raw and boiled grain,” 1 resolved, in selecting the particular 
kinds of grain for the experiment, to use those on which horses 
are usually fed, as more reliance on the results would probably 
then be placed by the generality of farmers. 
It may not be improper here to remark, that, previous to the 
experiments, I was in the practice of giving my horses one feed 
each alternately of raw, cut, and boiled grain daily, so that none 
of them had the disadvantage of a sudden change of diet. In 
arranging the horses for experiment, I divided them according 
to their tendency to keep in good or fall into bad condition when 
hard-worked, as carefully and impartially as I could. At the 
same time I had reason to believe that, in making the selection, 
an advantage was given, from certain causes, in favour of those 
on the boiled grain. At each of the three farms 1 appointed a 
man to take charge of serving out the food for the horses, and I 
promised him, as well as the other horsemen, a gratuity, should 
my directions be scrupulously followed. Having satisfied myself 
with the preliminary arrangements, my greatest difficulty con- 
sisted in the mode by which the relative condition of the horses 
at the beginning and end of the experiments might be ascer- 
tained. To have judged from the appearance of the animals, 
however carefully observed, would have been, at best, but guess- 
work ; and to have measured them would have been liable to error, 
from various causes. The difference between the first and second 
measurements might have been so trifling, or so great, that no 
satisfactory deduction could have been drawn as to the amount 
of improvement, or extent of falling off, in the animal during 
the course of the experiments ; especially when we take into 
account the impossibility of thereby ascertaining the internal 
increase or decrease of the fatty and other matter. 
To avoid all these sources of deception and miscalculation, I 
resolved on having the horses weighed , as the best mode by 
which their condition, and, consequently, the precise effect of the 
different preparations of the grain, could be ascertained. For 
this purpose they were weighed in a public weighing machine, 
about the 1st of March, when they were severally put upon the 
experimental feeding ; and again, about the beginning of May, 
at which time they were taken off it ; a period which, both in 
regard to length, and as comprehending nearly all the season of 
hard work, afforded ample opportunity for a satisfactory test. 
Each set of horses on the three farms was kept at the same kind 
of work, one man working a pair fed differently, so that no 
favouritism should be purposely or unintentionally exercised by 
any party towards the horses, either in their food or their work. 
