HOW TO BUY AND SELL. 109 



WATER. 



Of the many promoting causes of fever in tlie feet, I 

 will here mention one, and only one — the easiest of all to 

 prevent. It is stinting the horse of water. Let the 

 horse have all the water that he chooses to drink; do not 

 stint him in the least; the water will do him no injury 

 whatever, if he is not worked immediately after his first 

 satisfying drink and he is watered sufficiently of ten after- 

 wards. The number of times a day that he may want water 

 depends on many and varying causes; but he should be 

 watered so often that he will not care to driuk more than 

 four quarts at onetime. Proportionately, that amount 

 of water will not occuj^y so much space in his stomach 

 as does half a pint of liquid in the stomach of a man. 

 Some hardy horses will take the full allowance five times 

 a day, while frequently weakly ones will not take the 

 specified quantity, though watered only twice. Four 

 times daily is little enough for any of them. 



Cold water acts as a tonic to sick and Aveuk horses, 

 enabling them to eat more food, and, as they gain 

 strength, to do more work. 



The horse, when brought into the stable, is taken 

 from soft, succulent, and cooling food, and dej^rived of 

 the double privilege of driuking as much water as he 

 chooses, and of taking his exercise when and how he 

 likes on soft and cool ground, to be put upon dry, hard, 

 stimulating food, regulated in amount; to be in, unfor- 

 tunately, most cases, stinted in his sujiply of water; to 

 be forced to work on hard dry roads, shod as he is, with 

 iron shoes that become heated by the continuous friction 

 they undergo; and, as a climax, to be placed, at the end 

 of his involuntary labor, on a warm, dry floor, made 

 still warmer by an overspread layer of straw. Need we. 

 then, wonder that this extreme change of diet does pro- 

 duce such heat of body as, apart from the forced labor, 

 is sufficient to produce decided disease. 



