106 STABLE ECONOMY. 



that he can not reach with his teeth, and not easily with his 

 feet. The flies might settle there and satiate themselves 

 without disturbance : if the mane can not altogether exclude 

 those intruders, it can lash them off by a single jerk of the 

 head. I believe that in wild horses the mane falls equally on 

 both sides of the neck. 



The long hair of the mane, the tail, and the legs, is not 

 shed in the same manner as that on the body. It is decidu- 

 ous, but it does not fall so regularly, so rapidly, nor so often 

 as the other. Each hair, from its length, requires a much 

 longer time to grow ; if all were shed at once, the parts 

 would be left defenceless for pe?haps more than a month. 

 Some of the hairs are constantly losing their attachment and 

 falling out, while others are as constantly growing. It is not 

 possible to say what determines the fall of these hairs in 

 horses not domesticated. It may be some circumstance con- 

 nected with their age or length more than with the change ol 

 season. When brushed arid combed many of them are pulled 

 out. 



DOCKING. In this country the horse's tail is regarded as 

 a useless or troublesome appendage. It was given to ward 

 off the attacks of blood-sucking flies. But men choose to 

 remove it without being able to give the horse any other pro- 

 tection from the insects against which it was intended to 

 operate. They say that the long tail conceals the horse's 

 quarters, diminishes his apparent height, heats him at fast 

 work, and soils his rider. It is also supposed that amputa- 

 tion of the tail renders the back stronger. These sage say- 

 ings have been promulgated so extensively from one to an- 

 other, that it seems to be universally decided that all horses 

 must be docked. 



These, it will be observed, are very strong objections to a 

 long tail. It is a terrible thing to hide the quarters, and to 

 make the horse look lower by an inch than he really is. 

 Evils of such a nature are not to be suffered. The tail may 

 be very useful in some respects, and in the good old times it 

 was permitted to flourish as it grew, being only bound up 

 when it troubled the horse's rider. But in times like these, 

 when men clamor for freedom, and practise tyranny, it must 

 be cut off. 



It is said that the back becomes stronger after the tail is 

 docked ; that the back receives the blood which formerly went 

 to the tail. There is no truth in this. The small quantity 

 of blood which is saved can be furnished by one or two ad* 



