WHYTE-MELVILLE. 



389 



I need not dilate on the enormity of enjoying sport on a 

 suffering horse. Why te- Melville tells us that " there is a 

 right way and a wrong of traversing every acre of ground 

 that lies between them. On the grass, we must avoid crossing 

 high ridge-and-furrow in a direct line ; rather let us take it 

 obliquely, or, if the field be not too large, go all the way round 

 by the head-land. For an unaccustomed horse there is nothing 



Fig. 241. Hedge with ditch on one side. 



so trying as these up-and-down efforts, that resemble the 

 lurches of a boat in a heavy sea. A very true-shaped animal 

 will learn to glide smoothly over them after a season or two, 

 but these inequalities of surface must always be a tax on 

 wind and muscular powers at best." My experience is that 

 a clever and well-broken horse, even if he is only a four- 

 year-old, will learn to gallop over ridge-and-furrow properly, 



