8 WARRANTY OF 



the inside with perfect ease. Where contraction is the 

 cause of lameness, it usually arises from changing a 

 natural state of living to one that is artificial. The 

 heat or dryness of the stable is one of the principal 

 causes of contraction, as it aggravates the inflammation 

 produced by work and by the stimulating nature of the 

 food. 



Reason, therefore, would suggest that the horse reared 

 in the softest and wettest ground, and having the 

 largest-sized foot, would be most likely to receive injury 

 from the change ; and so it has proved in innumerable 

 cases. Great attention and care may keep such feet 

 moderately sound for a short time ; but they become 

 crippled almost as soon as they are worked. Not so 

 with the naturally smaller but harder hoof, which 

 has been accustomed to something nearer to the stable 

 dryness ; it is not, therefore, from this cause, so soon 

 inflamed. Horses with small hard feet have less fatty 

 membrane to carry, having generally been reared on hard 

 dry grounds. Food not being so plentiful in these situa- 

 tions as on the moist, soft, and fertile plains, they have 

 had to travel farther for it ; deriving much good from 

 the exercise thereby induced, and especially from the 

 dry and bracing air of more hilly regions. Horses 

 whose hoofs are naturally small and hard are, therefore, 

 better prepared in every way for the treatment they 

 have to undergo in their apprenticeship to work. They 

 have less useless weight of their own to carry ; they are 

 already accustomed to hard dry ground, and to more 



