514 COMPARATIVE DISEASES AM) LAMENESSES 
horses and cattle, I never heard but one farmer say that wheaten 
straw was the best straw for cattle ' ’ But to the question as to 
training horses upon straw instead of hay, I should only have re- 
turned a smile. Well ; see what a change has eight years’ resi- 
dence in France wrought upon my opinions and experience on this 
subject ! I am now not only convinced that, to the fact of horses in 
France eating as much wheaten straw as they do hay, is to be attri- 
buted their generally healthy condition, and also the non-necessity 
for physic, even to those who work hard and eat much corn (post and 
diligence horses for example) ; but I was informed by Lord Henry 
Seymour, at Paris, last March twelvemonth, that his race horses, 
then of course doing good work, were eating nothing but wheaten 
straw and corn. Casting this circumstance aside — it being a system 
that I cannot countenance, although obliged to give credit to the in- 
dividual fact — it is my sincere conviction that, putting what we 
consider a high state of condition out of the question, the compara- 
tively more healthy state of French horses over our own is to be 
attributed to the alterative properties of good wheaten straw, together 
with the occasional use of bran, either mixed with their food or water. 
From all I can learn, neither staggersnor gripes is at all prevalent 
in France; and although what we call condition is a point neither 
considered nor attempted by the owners of French horses, the appear- 
ance of them, for the most part, is indicative of a high state of mere 
bodily health, and they live and work — in the agricultural world 
especially- — to a very great age. On this particular point I 
have an anecdote that may make some of your readers smile. 
There is a carrier’s horse in my neighbourhood who works daily 
at the age of thirty-three ; but before he commences his labours, he 
has a gill of brandy given to him ! And yet what is the gill of 
brandy, with reference to out-of-the-way proceeding, when com- 
pared with the following miracle, as it may be termed, which was 
performed last winter on a horse working in the Boulogne Tele- 
graph coach, the truth of which may be confirmed by applying to 
the proprietor, Mr. Os win, of Calais, as it occurred in his stables. 
The horse in question was suffering severely from colic, when the 
coachman, a Frenchman, administered his never-failing specific. 
And, Reader, would you ever guess what this specific is 7 I answer 
for you, “ Never." He took out his knife, cut off that little corneous 
excrescence which has the appearance of a large wart on the in- 
side of the forearm, and, chopping it very small, let it drop into 
the ears of the horse. In ten minutes all pain ceased ; in another 
ten the horse was asleep ; he slept for more than half an hour, 
although there were persons moving in the stable ; and he went 
to his work the next morning as well as ever he was in his life ! 
