TURNING HUNTERS OUT TO GRASS 43 



to such disposing causes. What these preventives 

 are I shall take occasion to mention as I proceed. To 

 the three objections which I have now stated to turn- 

 ing out hunters to a summer's run at grass, I might 

 add a fourth ; and that is, the bad effects which arise 

 from the constant stamping of their feet to get rid of 

 the flies, which materially injures them, and is often 

 productive, not only of splints, but of ringbones, than 

 which nothing is more difficult to cure. 



Having recapitulated the disadvantages of the too 

 common method of turning hunters to grass for the 

 summer, I shall now state in what way they should 

 be treated during those months when hunting ceases. 

 My first object, it plainly appears, is to obtain condition, 

 and to obtain it in a manner least injurious to the animal 

 we have to deal with ; and as it is useless taking up 

 time in exposing past errors, I will proceed to detail 

 the plan I would pursue were I a servant employed 

 to get a stud of hunters into condition. It has been 

 the fashion of late to be intricate on the plainest 

 subjects ; but saying much does not prove much. 

 " Non est quod multa loquamur." My argument will 

 be the vulgar one of experience ; and I will endeavour 

 to make myself understood, so that, should any gentle- 

 man choose to let his groom read what I have written, 

 he may not mistake my meaning. In my humble 

 opinion writing on such subjects as these should be 

 nothing more than a sort of literary conversation 

 between the writer and the reader ; and, after all, 

 as Aristotle observes, perspicuity without meanness 

 is the perfection of style ; and common expressions 



