EDITORIAL. 
7 
airy has changed all this in short order. Seven provinces were 
delivered out of the enemy’s hands into ours in less than as 
many weeks by forced marches over slippery rice fields and 
constant skirmishes, and now only small cavalry patrols are 
going back and forth over the principal roads, bringing in a 
few stray men with rifles every day. About our horse a corre¬ 
spondent says: “ Our big American horses are the dragon of 
the little Filipino’s dream. At the sight of the galloping, 
yelling cavalrymen they never wait to fire a shot.” 
A fact which interests us greatly is the rapidity with which 
our horses become acclimated in the Philippines, and the ease 
with which they adapt themselves to an entirely new diet. 
They are said to relish the soft, succulent grass, and have 
quickly taken to eat rice and rice straw. A veterinarian writes 
us that if a seasoned horse is offered both oats and rice, he will 
prefer the latter, and he calculates that this will greatly reduce 
the expense to the government of keeping horses in the Philip¬ 
pines. All this, too, is against the prediction of some experts 
who were finding the horse an unclean and fragile creature and 
who were longing for the day of the bicycle and the automobile 
in warfare. 
To sum up : The horse has once more demonstrated his 
adaptability to changed conditions of war, and is winning new 
laurels in bringing victory to his side by his good will, fleet¬ 
ness and endurance, as he has done in the past for hundreds of 
years. No doubt the War Department will quickly recognize 
these facts and prepare for future emergencies by developing 
the mounted service in giving to it still better horses, good 
horsemen as soldiers, keen officers as leaders, and well equipped 
veterinarians as guardians of the health of the horse. O. S. 
VETERINARY SURGEONS FOR THE ARTILLERY. 
The bill before Congress re-organizing the artillery contains 
the following section : u Sec. io. That the Secretary of War 
is authorized to appoint for duty with the field artillery, under 
regulations governing similar appointments in the cavalry arm 
