CLIPPING. 247 
times, when the exhaustion is excessive, no solid food can be taken with 
safety till the next day; and gruel, with cordials, must be resorted to as 
the only kind of support which the stomach will bear. 
EOS SINGEING, AND TRIMMING, 
THE COAT OF THE HORSE is changed twice a year, the long hair of winter 
coming off in April and May, or sometimes earlier when the stables are 
warm and there is no exposure to severe cold. A slight sweat hastens 
this shedding, as every horseman knows by experience, and even in 
harness the hairs are cast in the face of the driver to his great annoyance 
on a windy day. Clipped horses are longer than others in shedding their 
coats, and present a most disagreeable mottled appearance, which makes 
the state still more noticeable. The long hair on the legs is about a 
month later in coming off, and indeed it will not fall till Midsummer, 
unless some more violent means than are used in ordinary dressing are 
adopted. With some breeds and individuals the winter coat is not very 
much longer and coarser than that of the summer; but all, save blind 
horses, show more or less difference in favour of the summer coat. 
Curiously enough, horses which are totally deprived of sight, have almost 
invariably a good winter’s coat, often better than that which they show 
at other seasons ; but why this is so no one has ever been able to explain, 
though I have never known the fact disputed. About the middle of 
October, or early in November, the summer coat is thrown off ; but some 
of the hair appears to remain as a sort of undercoat, among which the 
long, coarse hairs of winter make their appearance. These continue 
growing for six weeks or two months if they are clipped or singed, and 
even after Christmas, if the weather is cold and the skin is much exposed, 
there will be an evident increase in length of some of the hair. In 
accordance with the growth of this on the body is that of the hair on 
the legs, which become feathered all the way down below the knees in 
the fore legs, and half way down the backs of the canna bones in the 
hind legs. Low-bred horses have more hair on these parts than thorough- 
breds ; but even these latter, if they are not stabled tolerably warmly, 
exhibit a great deal of hair on their legs. Those who can see no possibility 
of improving on Nature come to the conclusion that this long hair is a 
defence against the cold, which ought not to be removed, and they argue 
that clipping and singeing are on that account to be rejected altogether. 
But these gentlemen forget that the horse in his native plains has always 
a short coat, and that the winds and rains, which cause him here to 
throw out an extra protection, are not natural to him. Moreover, if the 
animal is left to follow his own impulses, even when turned out in this 
country, he will be all the better for his long coat, for while it has the 
great advantage of protecting him from the cold, it is not wetted by 
sweat, because he does not voluntarily gallop long and fast enough to 
produce that secretion. The natural protection is therefore undoubtedly 
good for the horse when left in a state of nature ; but when man steps in 
and requires the use of the horse for such work as will sweat him severely, 
he discovers that a long coat produces such great exhaustion, both during 
work and after it, that it entirely forbids the employment of the horse for 
hunting, or any fast work. I have myself many times found it impossible 
to extend a horse for any distance on account of his long coat, which dis- 
tressed him so much as to make him blow directly, whereas on removing 
