100 TREATMENT ' OF ' DISEASES 



])ain, ligamentary lameness, sprain of the fetlock, &c. It is a rem- 

 edy of great efficacy in chronic pains and inflammatory tumors. 

 Four ounces of the plant to one pint of boiling water, are the pro- 

 portions. When cool, the parts are to be bathed often ; when prac- 

 ticable, a flannel is to be saturated with the fluid and bound ou the 

 affected parts; the whole to be covered with oiled silk. 



HORSES SHOULD BE EXERCISED DAILY. 



Horses require daily exercise in the open air, and can no more be 

 expected to exist without it than their owners. Exercise is an essen- 

 tial feature in stable management, and, like well-opportuned food, 

 tends alike to preserve the health of horses. 



Daily exercise is necessary for all horses, unless they are sick ; it 

 assists and promotes a free circulation of the blood, determines mor- 

 bific matter to the surface, develops the muscular structure, creates 

 an appetite, improves the wind, and finally invigorates the whole 

 system. We cannot expect much of a horse that has not been habit- 

 uated to sufficient daily exercise ; while such as have been daily 

 exercised, and well managed, are capable not only of great exertion 

 and fatigue, but are ready and willing to do our bidding at any sea- 

 son. When an animal is over-worked, it renders the system very 

 susceptible to whatever morbid influences may be present, and im- 

 parts to the disease they may labor under, an unusual degree of 

 severity. The exhaustion produced by want of rest is equally dan- 

 gerous ; such horses are always among the first victims of disease, 

 and when attacked their treatment is embarrassing and unsatisfactory. 



VALUE OF CARROTS. 



Carrots are very excellent ^^ fodder''' for horses that have been long 

 kept on highly carbonaceous food, and whose digestive organs may 

 be out of order in consequence of their constant activity in reducing 

 meal and oats into the elements of animal nutrition. With a fair 

 allowance of carrots, ground oats, and sweet hay, a horse will enjoy 

 good health and spirits, have a loose hide, shining coat, and healthy 

 lungs. A daily allowance of carrots should always be furnished 

 to horses, the subjects of indigestion ; whose food often runs 

 into fermentation, inducing diarrhoea, or a lax, washy state of the 

 bowels. Carrots furnish an acid called pectic, which possesses the 

 curious property of gelatinizing the watery contents of the digestive 

 cavities. A few drops of this pectic acid will gelatinize both, and 

 when mixed with the juice of an orange, changes the same into jelly. 

 So that if the alvine discharges of a horse are watery, carrots can 

 be used as a valuable therapeutic agent, both in view of arresting 

 the same and restoring the tone of the stomach and bowels. By ex- 

 amining the excrement of a horse, fed in part on carrots, it will be 

 found to contain no undigested hay nor oats, and therefore we may 

 safely infer that they promote digestion, so that by the constant use 

 of carrots, less quantities of hay and oats will suffice than when a 



