TURNING HUNTERS OUT TO GRASS 39 



With respect to the feet of hunters, all the advan- 

 tages obtained at grass are within our reach in the 

 stable. I have heard and read a great deal about 

 horn contracting in oil and expanding in water : but 

 we want neither oil nor water. It is moisture that we 

 require, and not wet. The latter is so far from being 

 serviceable to the feet of horses that it is really in- 

 jurious. Let those who doubt what I say keep a 

 horse for six months in sponge boots, and see what a 

 state his feet will be in. We read in history that the 

 horses in Hannibal's army were rendered useless by 

 travelling three days successively in water. Their 

 hoofs (for shoes they had none), we are told, came off. 

 They would have travelled for thirty days over a 

 sandy desert with less inconvenience. By watering 

 a hunter three times a day in the summer at a pond, 

 or in a running stream, and keeping his feet stopped, 

 three times a week, with cow-dung mixed with clay, or 

 damp (not wet) tow stuffed into them, we have all 

 the advantages that can be obtained in this respect by 

 turning him out to grass. As to what we hear, or 

 read, of the bad effects of standing on hot litter, as 

 disposing horses' feet to contract, I do not listen to it, 

 as my answer is — what business has a hunter to be 

 standing on hot litter ? There always is clean straw 

 to be had, and a boy to set his bed straight, whether 

 in a stall or in a loose house. 



My second objection to turning hunters out to grass 

 is one which escapes the observation of many ; and 

 that is, the great stress which is laid upon the sinews 

 of the fore-legs of most hunters when in the act of 



