690 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
America, horses are fed on maize and straw. In France, 
Spain, and Italy, maize is frequently substituted for oats. 
In Provence, horses and mules are fed on barley and straw. 
It is a general opinion, and a well-founded one, that to render 
horses vigorous, they must be fed on oats, no other grain 
can be compared with it. The following is the composition 
of some of the cereals : 
Oats 
Buckwheat 
Barley . 
Bye 
Wheat . 
Beans . 
In meadow hay, and the le 
carbon 330 to nitrogen 100. 
Lucerne 
Clover 
contain 
Carbon. 
324 
to 
Nitroqen. 
100 
• 33 
168 
39 
100 
• )) 
152 
93 
100 
• 33 
95 
33 
100 
• 39 
55 
33 
100 
• 53 
42 
33 
100 
uminosae, the proportions are, 
Carbon. Nitrogen. 
contains 182 to 100 
It would be a difficult task to ascertain the exact quantity 
of carbon and nitrogen required by the herbivora, but they 
all do well on rations consisting of meadow hay and oats, 
while horses are enabled by this food to do the greatest 
amount of hard work; and, moreover, they never get tired of 
such diet. We may therefore take it as the standard of 
what the diet of horses should consist. 
It is important, in the substitution of one kind of pro- 
vender for another, to study the chemical composition of 
each, so as to provide animals with those elements which are 
necessary to their constitution, and to the work they have to 
perform. Nor can it be questioned that many diseases, the 
causes of which are at present unknown, are produced by the 
food, and consequently a knowledge of the chemical con¬ 
stitution of the alimentary substances is of very great interest. 
