The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1879-03-21
Effect Of Food ON Colts.

1t is not best to keep colt during the sum-
mer even on grass, because he will keep fat
omit. He will not grow so large or so mus
cular. His time is chiefly employed in graz
ing, his stomach is always distended to reple-
ton. He becomes dull and sluggish. His
muscular system is weak and fabby, from
the fact that it is rarely called on to move his
lazy body out of q walk, whereas, if he is
stimulated by as much oat or wheat meal,
mixed with straw of nutritious character,
or, what is better, cut oats, he will often feel
inclined to indulge in run or romp which
causes the blood to course rapidly through
his veins to and from the heart; strengthens
and hardens in remarkable degree the mus
cuar and nervous system. In addition to
his daily allowance of grain would allow
him an extensive pasture and an abundance
OF grassland as great q variety as possible,
that he may be tempted to eat that which
would distend his bowels, and keep the system
cool. This manner of feeding would tell on
him in an astonishing degree, both in growth
muscular development, beauty, strength of
constitution, and usefulness
Our position being true it follows that if
you feed your colt on that diet alone which
makes fat, he will grow fat, and if you feed
ON that which makes fibrin or muscle, his
muscular development will, as a natural con
sequence, be greater; and as the greater or
less strength of the animal consists in his
muscular development, it must be apparent to
every one that his value depends much upon
MS diet while growing. Chemical ANALYSIS
has also shown that one kind of diet will
make an animal take on fat because it con-
tans greater amount of carbon; that corn
is perhaps superior to any of our cereal plants
In this respect, for fattening stock for the
butcher, which is already matured or grown;
and that wheat as it furnishes more fibrin or
the mnsl To- no inn l.,
young or growing stock in which muscle OF
strength is necessary, and in fact constitutes
It's future usefulness. Next to wheat, / think
barley ranks as most prolific; then comes rye,
then oats; but perhaps the most natural food
IS the latter. But that it is necessary that
the animal system should have other articles
OF diet than this or all of these, that the ma
chlnery should be developed regularly and
uniformly, OF even at ALL for any length of
tlme, the bowels must be distended with food
that Is more bulky, that the numerous little
emunctories or vessels mouthing upon the in
ternal surface may suck up these ingredients,
the future constituents of the frame, and mix
them with the blood to be distributed SO as
to increase the bulk of the body in various
points respectively.
Then it clearly follows that the future
value, beauty, and symmetry of the horse is
owing, IN very great degree, to the charac-
ter OF diet he is raised upon. That if you
want horse OF strength, action, beauty and
symmetry of form, raise him on those grains
chiefly which are calculated to make him So
for contend that we can to great degree con
troll the shape and model of our horses in this
way; If not so much as by breeding and
crossing, greatly more than most farmers are
aware OF; and we may breed and cross rs fine
stock as we please and starve them, or even
keep them fat during the whole growing
stage of their lives, and our hopes will be dis
appointed in regard to them at maturity,
Wnen we reduce them to service, and here let
me correct mistaken view even among some
connoisseurs of horses, to wit, that his 6ones
constitutes his strength. Such is a great
error; they are merely the pillars, points of
attachment for the muscles which are alone
the motor organs, and constitute his faculty
for speed and action, though the position and
arrangement of these bones influence very
much his action and speed, yet their size does
not.-Chscago Farmers Rercac.