FOOD 209 



Besides affording them an opportunity for exercise, an outdoor life 

 fits them and their produce for an early return to pasture after foaling, 

 without incurring the risks incidental to pampering in confinement. 



Water. Nothing is more important to the well-being of breeding- 

 studs than a supply of wholesome water. It is not to be expected, save 

 under exceptional circumstances, that a public service will be available. 

 Ponds, rivers, wells, and streams are the more common sources from 

 which the supply will require to be drawn. Here it will be necessary 

 to look into the details of these sources in all their relations, and par- 

 ticularly as to whence they are fed or replenished, and in what relation 

 they stand to possible sources of contamination with matters prejudicial 

 to health. 



Rivers on whose banks manufacturing industries are carried on, are 

 liable to be polluted with various deleterious waste products of manu- 

 facture, and the danger to animal health will in such cases be in pro- 

 portion as the stream is slow and small in volume, or rapid and large. 

 In times of drought, when water is low and sedimentary matters come 

 to the surface and are stirred up by the feet of horses while drinking, 

 the danger is materially augmented, not only as regards chemical sub- 

 stances and decomposing organic matter, but also in reference to parasitic 

 infection. Large numbers of animals are sometimes ruined in health 

 or altogether destroyed by the last-named cause. More than one costly 

 stud, in the experience of the writer, has been seriously depleted in conse- 

 quence of exposure to ponds infested with the eggs and larvae of blood- 

 sucking parasites. 



Ponds should be periodically cleansed. No trees should be allowed 

 to overhang them, and to obtain the greatest security against mischief 

 they should be fenced off and the water lifted into tanks placed beside 

 them. This is especially desirable during periods of drought, when they 

 are low, and the decomposing sediment teeming with animal and vegetable 

 life is brought near to the surface. 



Purity is not a possible condition in nature, and cannot therefore be 

 hoped for, but as far as practicable an ample and wholesome supply 

 should at all times be accessible to breeding-stock and their produce. 



Neglect of this precaution has frequently been found by the writer 

 to afford a reasonable explanation of those outbreaks of abortion and 

 infertility which so frequently occur in our large breeding -studs, and it 

 should ever be present to the mind of the breeder that however whole- 

 some water may be at its source and in its course, dangerous pollution 

 may nevertheless result where tanks and troughs are allowed to be fouled 

 by animal and vegetable matters. The periodical cleansing of these 



