118 THE HORSE. 



young animal, both before and after birth. If the pelvis and back 

 ribs are not large and deep, the foetus will not have room to be de- 

 veloped and brought into the world ; and unless the mare is a good 

 feeder, and is also furnished with an udder which will give suffi- 

 cient milk, she will not afford enough nourishment to her foal, 

 which will, therefore, be weakly and badly developed in its pro- 

 portions. The shape may be easily detected beforehand, but the 

 constitution and milking properties cannot so well be predicated, 

 though the experienced eye and hand of the stud-groom will 

 enable him to give a tolerably correct guess. 



HOVEL AND PADDOCK. 



IF THE BREEDER is about to undertake the production of a 

 number of horses of any kind, he must establish a regular stud- 

 farm, which for all horses should be on sound upland, with a sub- 

 soil of chalk or gravel. The presence of fine white clovers is in 

 itself almost sufficient to show that the soil will be suitable to the 

 horse ; but, if possible, there should be an absolute practical know- 

 ledge that the situation has agreed with the animal, before any 

 heavy investment is made. If the surface fall is good, drain ing- 

 may not be necessary, but in most cases the herbage will be greatly 

 improved by the introduction of tiles. Low, marshy situations may 

 serve during the autumn months to freshen up a stall horse, but 

 they are utterly unfit for the rearing of young stock, and should 

 be carefully avoided. If the stud is highly bred, and the feeding 

 is to be good, the colts will be very mischievous, and unless care 

 is taken to make the fences safe, they will break bounds, or injure 

 themselves in the attempt. Deep ditches are very unsafe, for the 

 mare as well as her foal are very apt to get cast in them, with a 

 serious or fatal injury as the result. Posts and rails answer well 

 enough, where timber is plentiful, but, in the long run, they are 

 expensive from the necessity for constant repairs. Banks with thorn 

 hedges on the top are the very best of all means for enclosing the 

 paddocks, and are even better than stone walls, which, however, are 

 excellent for the purpose if they have the soil raised against their 

 bases, without which the foal is liable to slip up against their sur- 

 face, and thus sometimes blemish his knees. There is a great 

 difference of opinion as to the size necessary for the paddocks, and 

 the number of mares which should be allowed in each. In some 

 well conducted stud-farms, as, for instance, in that belonging to the 

 Rawcliffe Company, near York, the enclosures are very large, and 

 a dozen, or even as many as eighteen, mares and their foals are 

 turned out together as soon as the weather permits, and the spring 

 grass grows high enough. In others, as at the Hampton Court and 

 Middle Park establishments, the paddocks are each only calcu- 

 lated to take three or four mares and their foals ; and the yearlings, 



