Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/145

Rh objection to large horses is not so much the increased amount of food required, as the fact that they are soon used up by wear. They would prefer for feed a mixture of half corn and half oats, if it were not more expensive. Horses do not keep fat so well on oats alone, if at hard labor, as on corn meal, or a mixture of the two.

"Straw is best for bedding. If salt hay is used, horses eat it, as not more than a bag of 200 pounds of salt is used in three months. Glauber salt is allowed occasionally as a laxative in the spring of the year, and the animals eat it voraciously. If corn is too new, it is mixed with an equal weight of rye bran, which prevents scouring. Jersey yellow corn is best, and horses like it best. The hay is all cut, mixed with meal, and fed moist. No difference is made between day and night work. The travel is continuous, except in warm weather, when it is sometimes divided, and an interval of rest allowed. In cold weather the horses are watered four times a day in the stable, and not at all on the road. In warm weather, four times a day in the stables, and are allowed a sip on the middle of the route.

"The amount that the company exact from each horse is all that he can do. In the worst of the traveling they fed 450 bags per week of meal, of 100 pounds each. They now feed 400. The horses are not allowed to drink when warm. If allowed to do so, it founders them. In warm weather a bed of sawdust is prepared for them to roll in. Number of horses, 335. Speed varies, but is about four miles an hour. Horses eat more in cold weather than in warm, but the difference cannot be exactly determined."

From this Report we deduce the following hints:

1. It is possible for horses to be kept in good condition, on severe work, when fed on cut hay and corn meal, without oats.