i 34 SADDLERY. 



Serge is used for both kinds of panels; and leather, as a 

 rule, only for short ones. 



For convenience of discussion under this heading, we may 

 divide panels into absorbent panels and leather-covered 

 panels. The chief advantages of the latter are that they 

 remain dry, and require for their preservation only the 

 application of a little grease from time to time. If they are 

 stuffed with curled hair, they will keep their shape and 

 elasticity for a long period. Their disadvantages are, that, 

 to be re-stuffed, they require to be taken out of the saddle ; 

 they are not as comfortable to a horse's back, when he 

 is sweating, as serge-covered panels, which quickly absorb 

 any excess of perspiration ; are not so soft, owing to the 

 fact that the leather does not stretch so readily as serge, 

 and are liable to shift their position when the saddle 

 is used in hilly ground. The fact that liability to sore 

 back is increased by clipping the hair off that portion 

 of the back which is covered by the saddle, shows that 

 it is an advantage to have an absorbent material between 

 the skin and the panel. The presence of unabsorbed 

 sweat between the back and the panel will naturally make 

 the skin of the part soft and liable to injury, especially 

 during severe and prolonged work. 



The advantage which a serge-covered panel derives from 

 its power of absorption, is more or less counterbalanced by 

 the subsequent trouble of drying it, and by the increased 

 weight and loss of elasticity due to the presence of mineral 

 matter being left in the stuffing by the absorption and sub- 

 sequent evaporation of sweat. It is evident that unless such 

 a panel is carefully dried, after it has got wet, it will soon 

 become spoiled. Beating the panel with a stick, after it has 

 been well dried, will remove some of the deposited mineral 

 matter, but by no means all of it. 



By far the hardest part of an ordinary serge-covered panel 



