There are several varieties of the bean in use as horse-food, but I do not know that one is better than another. The small plump bean is preferred to the large shrivelled kind. Whichever be used, the beans should be old, sweet, and sound. New beans are indigestible and flatulent; they produce colic, and founder very readily. They should be at least a year old. Beans are often ill-harvested; and when musty or mouldy, though quite sweet internally, horses do not like them. They are often attacked by an insect which consumes much of the flour, and destroys the vitality of the rest. The ravages of the insect are plain enough. The bean is excavated, light, brittle, and bitter tasted. A few in this state may do no harm; but when the beans are generally infected, it is not likely that they are eaten with impunity, and very often the horse refuses them altogether. Damp, musty, ill-kept beans, though old, are as flatulent as those which are new. All kinds are constipating.

Though in very general use for horses, beans are not so extensively employed as oats. According to the chymists, they contain more nutriment; and in practice it is universally allowed that beans are much the stronger of the two. The comparison, however, is almost always made in reference to a measured quantity. A bushel of beans is, beyond all doubt, more nutritious than a bushel of or as, but it is questionable whether a pound of beans is stronger than a pound of oats. Beans weigh about sixty-three pounds per bushel, and if given in an oat measure, the horse may be getting nearly double allowance. This, I am persuaded, often happens, and hence arise those complaints about the heating, inflammatory nature of beans; [they are constipating and their heating quality is secondary, by inducing fever as a consequence of costiveness.] The horse becomes plethoric; the groom says the humors are flying about him. It is very likely that he would be in the very same state if he were getting an equal weight of oats.

* British Husbandry, vol. i., p. 146.

If beans do not afford more nutriment, weight for weight of oats, they at least produce more lasting vigor. To use a common expression, they keep the stomach longer. The horse can travel farther; he is not so soon exhausted. " I remember." says Nimrod, "hearing Mr. Warde exclaim, as his hounds were settling to their fox, ' Now we shall see what horses eat old oats, and what eat new.' I am inclined to think that this distinction may be applied to horses that eat beans, and those that eat none, for they help to bring him home at the end of a long day, and support his strength in the run." I believe Nimrod is quite right. In the coaching-stables beans are almost indispensable to horses that have to run long stages. They afford a stronger and more permanent stimulus than oats alone, however good. Washy horses, those of slender carcass, can not perform severe work without a liberal allowance of beans; and old horses need them more than the young. The quantity varies from three to six pounds per day; but in some of the coaching-stables the horses get more, a pound of oats being deducted for every pound of beans. Cart-horses are often fed on beans, to the exclusion of all other grain, but they are always given with dry bran, which is necessary to keep the bowels open, and to ensure mastication.

Beans are not in general use for racehorses, but are sometimes given to bad eaters. They are usually split and hulled, which is a superfluous process. For old horses they should be broken or bruised.

The bowels are very apt to become constipated, and dangerously obstructed when the horse is getting a large allowance of beans. They are so constipating that, as they are increased in quantity, bran must be added in proportion. Beans, and bean-straw, which is as constipating as the beans, should not be both used at the same time.

Some horses will not eat beans. The Irish horses, when first brought to this country, always refuse them; they invariably pick out the oats and leave the beans. It does not appear that they dislike them, for after they begin, they feed as well as other horses. Ultimately, they seem to discover that beans are for eating, although it is often a long time ere they make the discovery.

The horse, however, may soon be taught. Let him fast for an hour beyond the feeding-time, and then give him half a ration of beans without oats. If he still reject them, offer them split or broken, or moisten them, and sprinkle a little oatmeal over them, sufficient to make the beans white. If be still demur, put another horse, a hungry one, beside him, and he will soon teach his ignorant neighbor; if he do not, I can not tell what will.

Bean meal, or flour, is sometimes added to the boiled food; But it is oftener given in the water to cure the staling-evil.