In our Eastern states where the disease was thirty years ago so notoriously prevalent, the fields of luxuriant red clover might well have excited the envy of the English farmer. The hay made from this, full of seed and dust was given without stint to the farm horses, which during the rigor of the winter were often shut up in stable for a length of time continuously and dangerously gorged themselves with this provender. In the Eastern States with a steady falling off in the red clover, there is also a corresponding reduction in the number of cases of heaves. The grain allowed them, a mixture, supposed to consist of Indian corn, oats and buckwheat, given as a dry coarse flour, was little calculated to counteract the effects of the clover hay, and the entire absence of turnips and other succulent roots as a farm crop precluded their use as a preventive of the malady. We need not forget the prevalent ambition to possess a fast trotter, nor the effect of the climate on the air passages (See _chronic bronchitis_) in estimating the causes of this malady in the Eastern states. The mere overloading of the stomach is a potent cause of the development of heaves. The horse is above all other animals compelled to undergo hard work on a full stomach. Coleman cites the experience of the coaching days when each horse had 20 lbs. of oats daily and not more than 5 lbs. of hay with no water before work. These horses were driven fast for long stages yet they never contracted broken wind under this treatment. Farmers’ and millers’ horses on the other hand were most subject to the disease because gorged continually with hay chaff and mealy food, and worked in this condition. “Nimrod” who confirms Coleman’s statement says “I have taken some pains to ascertain this fact by my own personal inquiries. One proprietor who has nearly fifty horses at work—many of which are in as fast coaches as any that travel on the road—assured me lately that he had not a broken winded horse in his yard; whereas before he stinted them in their hay he generally had one to five in that state.” Percivall testifies to its comparative infrequency in the English cavalry horses, which have their diet carefully regulated. Hay musty from bad harvesting or other cause and such as is rank from growing in low wet localities are _caeteris paribus_ more injurious than good hay. Every day observation shows that driving a horse upon a full stomach often causes broken wind and nothing will more surely aggravate it, when it does exist. The same remark may be made of the drinking of large quantities of water after feeding and just before going to work. Gross feeders are above all others the subjects of the complaint.