JUDGING. 181 



pencil has been, with the certainty of unerring 

 instinct, across the board. Practised art hand-in- 

 hand with genius, and behold — heigh presto ! the 

 result. Outlines of prize stock the young agricul- 

 turist should practise his pen in depicting, until he, 

 too, detects by the shade the line of shoulder at a 

 glance — a feat that puzzles the inexperienced so 

 much. 



There is this further advantage to be derived from 

 the study of illustrated works, that a man who 

 has once bent himself in earnest to the pictured 

 page of Laurence, Mayhew, Youatt, Stonehenge, 

 will be fore-armed for the approach of any epidemic 

 or accident. The characteristic symptoms his eye 

 will come quickly to detect. 



Any one of those volumes will instruct him far 

 better than words can, in the essential point of 

 knowing how to determine a horse's age by his 

 teeth. It is simply this : When about two and a 

 half years of age, he casts the two central teeth in 

 upper and lower jaw (nippers they are called). They 

 are soon replaced, but he should at this period have 

 plenty of soft food, or he is apt to run back in condi- 

 tion. The next year one on each side of the central pair 

 are cast above and below. He is then four years old. 

 The next year one on each side of those last replaced 

 is cast, and when the new ones are come the horse's 

 mouth is full. He is approaching to the pride of his 

 might, five years old. These two outside teeth are 

 more slow to grow than the other four intermediate 

 ones. At five years old they scarcely rise above the 

 gums : at six the hollow begins to fill. The Arab 



