The treatment of horses follows that of cattle, and this chapter is fitted to be of extensive use among our practical farmers. There are few subjects to which the attention of our small farmers requires more to be drawn than to the treatment of their horses--few in which want of skill causes a more general and _constant_ waste. The economy of _prepared_ food is ably treated of, and we select the following passage as containing at once sound theoretical and important practical truths: "It appears at first sight somewhat surprising that the idea of preparing food for farm-horses should only have been recently acted on; but I have no doubt that the practice of the turf and of the road, of maintaining horses on large quantities of oats and dry ryegrass hay, has had a powerful influence in retaining it on farms. But now that a more natural treatment has been adopted by the owners of horses on fast work, farmers, having now the example of post-horses standing their work well on prepared food, should easily be persuaded that, on slow work, the same sort of food should have even a more salutary effect on their horses. How prevalent was the notion, at one time, that horses could not be expected to do work at all, unless there was _hard meat_ in them! 'This is a very silly and erroneous idea, if we inquire into it,' as Professor Dick truly observes, 'for whatever may be the consistency of the food when taken into the stomach, it must, before the body can possibly derive any substantial support or benefit from it, be converted into _chyme_--a pultacious mass; and this, as it passes onward from the stomach into the intestinal canal, is rendered still more fluid by the admixture of the secretions from the stomach, the liver, and the pancreas, when it becomes of a milky appearance, and is called _chyle_. It is then taken into the system by the lacteals, and in this _fluid_, this _soft_ state--_and in this state only_--mixes with the blood, and passes through the circulating vessels for the nourishment of the system.' Actuated by these rational principles, Mr. John Croall, a large coach-proprietor in Edinburgh, now supports his coach horses on 8 lb. of chopped hay and 16 lb. of bruised oats; so does Mr. Isaac Scott, a postmaster, who gives 10 lb. or 12 lb. of chopped hay and 16 lb. of bruised oats, to large horses: and to carry the principle still further into practice, Captain Cheyne found his post-horses work well on the following mixture, the proportions of which are given for each horse every day; and this constitutes the second of the formulæ alluded to above." In the day, 8 lb. of bruised oats. 3 lb. of bruised beans. 4 lb. of chopped straw. ------ 15 lb. At night 22 lb. of steamed potatoes. 1-1/2 lb. of fine barley dust. 2 lb. of chopped straw. 2 oz. of salt. ---------- 25-1/2 lb.