LETTER VIII 



HARD MEAT verSUS GRASS — PHYSIC 



FROM the experience of graziers and butchers, 

 as well as by the reports of the meat markets, 

 we find that some summers are particularly 

 unfavourable to the beasts of the field, 

 consequently to those hunters which have been 

 managed under the old, and perhaps too common, 

 system of three months' run at grass ; and, as there 

 is nothing like proof, I satisfied myself of the truth of 

 what I have asserted in the following manner : 

 Knowing that a neighbour of mine had his hunters 

 out, as usual, I rode to his house to see them ; and 

 wishing to put matters to the test, I took a horse of 

 my own with me that had been summered, if I may 

 use such a word, nearly, though not exactly, accord- 

 ing to the method I have recommended, and I will 

 state the result in detail. My horse had had two doses 

 of physic since the last season, was not turned out 

 till the first week in June, and then only at night, on 

 a third year's lea which had been closely fed down in 

 the spring. During the bad weather he lay in at 

 night, and was turned out at four in the morning, 

 taken up at ten a.m., and out again at five in the 



evening till nine, when he was housed for the night. 



107 



