TURNING OUT TO GRASS OR PASTURING 309 



but much safer where a considerable quantity is allowed. The aperient 

 action, the gases developed in the intestines, or some medicinal quality as 

 yet unascertained, has the advantage of expelling worms of the lumbricoid 

 order, more especially the common ascaris megalocephala, which may have 

 previously resisted the effects of time-honoured vermifuges. When vetches 

 are old and the seed-pods are well developed they are too heating for horse 

 food and liable to produce colic. As there is no galloping over hard 

 ground the shoes may be removed altogether, and even tips may be dis- 

 pensed with. Now is the time to attend to any early symptoms of sand- 

 crack, seedy toe, etc., prompt measures at this season often leading to a 

 prevention of these annoying evils. If the horse is not more than ten or 

 twelve years old, his corn may be stopped altogether while he is eating 

 green food in June and July, but a favourite old hunter should be indulged 

 with a couple of quarterns daily, or he will probably lose flesh to a great 

 extent. The young horse is always prone to inflammation, which a cooling 

 treatment will remove, but the old one is more seasoned, and he will get 

 more harm from being lowered in his general system than the benefit to 

 his legs will repay. By the month of August all these plans will have co- 

 operated to produce the desired effect ; the legs are cool and fine, and the 

 lumps and bumps incidental to the hunting-field have disappeared or been 

 reduced to a harmless condition. The practice of giving an aloetic ball, or 

 dose of physic, as that particular aperient is still called in stable nomencla- 

 ture, has perhaps fallen too much into desuetude. It may be granted that 

 in the days of bleeding and drugging there was an abuse of aloes, but we 

 may easily fall into the opposite error, and by not giving it at all the 

 animal is not so well prepared for a change of diet, especially the change 

 from soft to hard and dry food, and we are of opinion that more cases of 

 gripes and impaction are encountered in those establishments where a pre- 

 judice against the aloetic ball has resulted in its discontinuance. Individ- 

 uals differ very greatly, and while some " washy " animals may never need 

 an aperient a second dose may be desirable in the case of others. For the 

 average hunter an aloetic ball may be recommended at the beginning and 

 end of his period of soiling, which will be about the middle of August if 

 sufficient time is to be allowed for that gradual and progressive training 

 described elsewhere as conditioning. 



TURNING OUT TO GRASS OR PASTURING 



Tins should not be done too early in the season, and a few precautions 

 may be mentioned. Though many eminent authorities of the older school 

 of horsemen have dilated on the dangers of turning horses out to grass, 

 except in the height of summer, we must dissent from them, insomuch as 

 their fears were chiefly based upon the supposed liability of taking cold and 

 inflammation resulting. Greater, we think, are the dangers of bad fencing 

 and playing the fool with each other. Veterinary surgeons in country 

 practice tell us of a dozen accidents occurring to horses at grass for one 

 illness, and although we have known hundreds of horses come direct from 

 hard work in towns without any preparation for the change, and without 

 bad results, we should strongly recommend a gradual preparation, since the 



