676 MR. DICK ON COOKING FOOD FOR HORSES. 
to render it a matter of less moment now than it would have 
been last season, and may be on some future occasion, still the 
knowledge of the fact is at least worth recording; and that fact 
is, that a horse may be kept upon a much less quantity of hay 
than is generally supposed to be necessary for him, and that with¬ 
out stinting him of a proper allowance of that kind of provender. 
Hoi ses, when allowed as much hay as they commonly are, al¬ 
most invariably waste a considerable quantity of what is placed 
before them : the wasted portion with them goes for nothing, 
but it costs the full price to the owner of the animal. This 
waste, on an average, amounts to nearly one-half, or at least one- 
third, of what is consumed. It is quite evident, therefore, that, 
if the portion that is wasted could be saved, a great diminution 
in the expense of keep would be the result. A saving, however, 
is not only to be effected by avoiding waste, as far as that is pos¬ 
sible, but another saving may be effected by the means employed 
to effect the other, which I shall now endeavour to explain. 
Before either vegetable or animal food is in a proper state to 
be acted on by the stomach and other organs immediately con¬ 
cerned in the digestive process, it is necessary that the food 
which is to pass into the stomach should be broken down, and 
minutely comminuted. This is more especially the case in re¬ 
gard to herbivorous animals: hence we see that these animals 
have first a mill, the grinding teeth, by which it is reduced to a 
kind of coarse powder : it is at the same time mixed with a 
large quantity of fluid, the saliva, the quantity of which is al¬ 
most incredible to those who have not had an opportunity of as¬ 
certaining it, but which the following fact will testify :—A black 
Jiorse had received a wound in the parotid duct, which became 
fistulous. When his jaws were in mo'tion, in the act of eating 
hay, I had the curiosity to collect, in a glass measure, the quan¬ 
tity which flowed during one minute, by a stop-watch, and it 
amounted to nearly a drachm more than two ounces in that time. 
Now, if we calculate that the parotid gland on the opposite 
cheek poured into the mouth the same quantity in the same 
time, and allow that the sublingual and submaxillary glands, on 
each side combined, pour into the mouth a quantity equal to the 
two parotids, we then have no less than eight ounces of saliva 
passing into the mouth in one minute, for the purpose of soften¬ 
ing the food, and preparing it for digestion. But this is not 
all : for we find that it requires to be still farther prepared before 
it passes on to be digested. In the horse we find a portion of 
the stomach lined by an insensible coat, forming a kind of pouch 
for the masticated food to steep in, to be prepared to pass on to 
the portion where the digestion is more especially carried on; 
