THE IMPROVED 



ART OF' FARRIERY 



AND COMPLETE 



FARMER'S GUIDE. 



A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE RISE AND PRO- 

 GRESS OF ^iHE VETERINARY ART. 



The veterinary art appears to be of considerable an. 

 tiquity. Among the Greeks, the philosophic Xeno- 

 phon did not esceem the subiect unworthy of his atten- 

 tion. His work (^De re EquestriJ, proves that the 

 study of the horse was held to be of considerable im- 

 portance by many great men even in those days. When 

 the glory of Greece had declined, and imperial Rome 

 had snatched the laurel of victory from her brow, we 

 find the subject became more general ; and among the 

 many authors treating on it figure the names of Varro 

 and Virgil, who flourished in the age of Augustus, the 

 golden period of Roman literature. A treatise by 

 Columella, (entitled De re Rushed), is particularly 

 devoted to the subject: he wrote in the time of 

 Claudius. 



Nothing, however, of importance on the subject ap- 

 peared till Vegetius, in the latter part of the third cen- 

 tury, embodied in his writings all that could be culled 

 from both Greek and Roman authors ; and so ably 

 had he treated on this head that for ages it was re- 



