OF FARRIERY. 



45 



desrrees, to an empty stable or slied to lay 

 under. 



When gentlemen have convenience of their 

 own to turn Horses out in winter, there is no 

 doubt of their being taken care of; in open 

 weather there is good pasturage, and in hard 

 weather, an out-house or stable to lay in, with 

 plenty of hay. A Horse may be benefitted 

 by a winter's run of this sort, and come up re- 

 freshed ; but as we were alluding to straw- 

 yards, where they take in all that come, and 

 account they do well by them if they keep 

 them alive, which has been the case with 

 many I have seen ; not but a Horse may do 

 well, when he is up to his belly in clean straw, 

 and can pick and cull the ears to fill himself: 

 but where they take in for pay, some men 

 scarcely ever think they are over-stocked, and 

 that which is scarcely fit for the Horse to lay 

 upon, becomes his food. Therefore it behoves 

 those who send Horses to straw-yards, not to 

 rely altogether on specious promises, but to 

 occasionally visit them yourself, to see how they 

 fare ; and you must not be surprised, if you do 

 not know your own Horse, for the alteration 

 sometimes is beyond any person's conception. 

 A Horse in the rough is so very different from 

 what he appears when kept clean and hand- 

 somely done up ; how much more so must it 

 be, when reduced by cold and poverty, his 

 flanks hollow, his crest fallen, his coat long 

 and staring, and the colour completely changed 

 by the weather, his spirits flagged, and he 

 appears altogether dejected. This is the 

 state many are reduced to by a xointefs 

 turning out ; and to recover them to the state 

 tiiey were in previous to turning out, if the 

 constitution is not so injured as to preclude it, 

 would cost from ten to twenty pounds. 



i leave persons, then, to judge for themselves 



of the prudence and economy of turning out 

 in winter. 



The giving Horses green food in the stable 

 is called soiling ; it is not convenient for those 

 who keep no more Horses than they have use 

 for to turn them out to grass, and particularly 

 in that season when people make pleasure on 

 horseback, or travel on business. The work of 

 Horses of this description is hardly to be called 

 exercise ; perhaps not more than ten miles a 

 day, on the average, and their pace seldom 

 exceeding more that six or eight miles an hour, 

 and that for very short distances, as fast riding 

 in hot weather is neither genteel or pleasant. 

 Under sucli circumstances, green food in the 

 stable, as a cooler and alterative, is admis- 

 sible and highly proper ; for some constitutions 

 will not do well without it, dry food for a long 

 continuance not agreeing with them, and no 

 quantity of dry food that you can give would 

 make them thrive, but they will be lank, do 

 all you can. I have hinted, that such a des- 

 cription of Horse is not worth keeping, but 

 where Avork is light, they serve instead of a 

 better Horse, and their paces and action may 

 be very good, though their constitution, like 

 some of ours, may not be the most robust. 



Green food to Horses is a kind of natural 

 physic, cooling and opening the body ; and 

 many preclude the necessity of other physic ; 

 for you will perceive, at his first having green 

 food, particularly if he works with it, he will 

 void his dung quite soft, if not scour. This 

 is the benefit he derives from it; consequently, 

 clearing out the alimentary canal, and pro- 

 ducing that healthy secretion, nature is so 

 desirous of; but after a time, the purgative 

 principle appears to have passed off", and fhe 

 Horse merely voids his dung, in rather a soft 

 state than not. I, of course, should not advise 



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