SWEATING 173 



Returning once more to the present season of the 

 year — a season in which so much good or evil here- 

 after depends — I have only to urge the absolute 

 necessity of administering alterative medicines to 

 hunters first beginning to work ; and the only pre- 

 caution necessary to preserve the bloom on their 

 coats, or to secure them from any inconvenience from 

 their effects, is to keep them warm, both in and out 

 of the stable ; to give them plenty of hand-rubbing 

 to their legs, with a liberal allowance of good old com. 

 There are many grooms who delay giving their horses 

 severe exercise till the month of October ; but — I 

 speak from experience — horses so managed are not 

 in condition on this side Christmas. That there can 

 be no condition without long-continued work, is as 

 true as that there would be no day if there were no 

 night. 



As there is nothing like a little practical information, 

 I give the following detail : This day (August 15, 

 1824) I had a hunter sweated. She had on her a 

 thick blanket-rug, under a quarter-sheet and breast- 

 plate, with a single hood. She was once walked 

 around a fallow field (fresh rolled and dragged) of 

 sixteen acres, just to enable her to throw off some 

 of her meat. She trotted three times around it, and 

 cantered twice. She then walked home, about a 

 quarter of a mile, to her stable, where (as it rained) 

 she was scraped. I stood by with my watch in my 

 hand, and in twelve minutes her neck was dry. At 

 the expiration of nineteen minutes she was dry all 

 over, having been well wisped ; and, after walking 



