114 The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



velvet and as sleek as moles." No man knew more 

 about the ploughman than he, or was more beloved 

 by (to use his own words) his old and trusted servants, 

 many of whom had worked lor him for twenty years 

 and upwards ; one of his great secrets of successful 

 farming was to get good men and keep them. He 

 studied the welfare of his men, and his men repaid him 

 by faithfully doing their duty, and loving and caring for 

 his horses and stock, because he loved and cared for 

 them. 



I now come to another troublesome complaint of 

 the foot. Ah ! how many are there who can tell ? only 

 the man with large studs under his care. The diseases, 

 modifications, and complications are truly amazing and 

 fearful to contemplate. Who will say that 



SANDCRACK 

 is not as bad as any other disease of the foot, and quite 

 as painful to the animal ? Who of my readers has torn 

 the nail of his finger down to the quick, and experienced 

 the pain when he has touched anything with the injured 

 finger ? He at least will know something of the pain 

 the poor horse has to suffer when his feet are afflicted 

 with sandcrack. Sandcrack is a disease that is mostly 

 met with in horses working upon hard roads and drawing 

 heavy loads. In the cart horse it is chiefly found in the 

 hind feet, but in the lighter breed of horses it is mostly 

 confined to the fore feet. Sandcrack is simply a bursting 

 of the horny matrix that holds together the horn fibres 

 or horn tubes of the hoof. It may only reach to a very 

 limited extent at the coronet, or it may extend from the 

 coronet to the ground surface. It may come on gradually, 



