The miners' express. (Dubuque, Iowa) 1849-1854, 1850-09-11
From the 9Th number OF the farmers Guide.
Cooked Food for Horses.

Inc horse thrIves we'll on cooked food. lie
has single simple stomach, which must be
filled at once with well masticated food, before
the gastric juice can act upon it in proper man
ner; and should any food which enters it in al,
insuficiently mastcated state, escape beyond
the influence Of the bowels, it may decompose
there, generate gas, and produce the analogous
disease ofhocem in cattle, namely, fatuent collie
Or bolts. To render food in such state as
shall save the horse the trouble of mastication,
is therefore to do him good service; and hence
cooked food is in proper state for feeding a
horse, and has been proved to be economical
Still, the cooking will be carried to an injurious
degree if it shall, by dint of ease Of deglution,
prevent the flow ola sufficient quantity of saliva
plete ion,-"the quantity of (which says
Professor Dick, dis almost incredible to those
who have not had an opportunity of assertaining
it, but which the following fact will testify. A
black horse had received wound in the parotid
duct, which became fistulous. When his jaws
were in motion, in the act of eating hay, had
the curiosity to collect in glass measure the
quantity which flowed during minute, by a
stop watch; and it amounted to nearly 2 drachms
more than OF. in that time. Now, if we cal
culate that the parotid gland on the opposite
cheek poured into the mouth the same quantity
the same time and allow that the sub-linguai
and ub-maxilliary glands on each side combined,
pour into the mouth a quantity equal to the two
parotids, we have no less than o. of saliva
passing into the mouth of horse in one minute,
Tor the purpose of softening the food and prepar-
ing it for DIGESTION Yetit is impossible for
any horse to swallow food, in the most favorable
state it can be made for swallowing, without
moving his jaws to a certain degree, and this
stomach.
But more than this, cooked food may be pre-
scented in too nutritious state for the stomach;
and there may be on the other hand, too little
nutriment in the food given. For ''the digestive
organs of the horse, like those Of the OK" says
Professor Dick, care very capacious, and are
evidently intended to take in large proportion
Of nutriment; and if the food upon which they
are made to live is of too rich quality, there is
by the excitemant produced, increase Of
peristalic motion in order to throw off the super
abundent quantity which has been taken into
the stomach and bowels.
1t is necessary to give, therefore, a certain
quantity Of bulk, to separate perhaps, the parti-
Giles of nutricous matter, that the bowels may be
enabled to act upon it properly. A horse could
not live so well on oats, if fed entirely upon
them as when portion of fodder Is given; with
them certain quantity is required. But this
may be carried too far, and the animal may have
his bowels loaded with too large a guam ity of
unnutrtious food as witness the nature of the
steep before alluded to,-"and nothing less than
such mass will render him incapable to per-
form any active exerton, will he sufficient to
afford him even scantly degree of nourishment
horse living on straw in a straw-yard becomes
pot-bellied. Hence it is, that a proper arrange
ment in the properties and proportions of his
food becomes matter of important considera-
ton.