THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 245 



We may, without doubt, improve on the training pro- 

 cess, and simpUfy it to advantage, but there is httle 

 doubt that we cannot wholly dispense with the aids 

 derived from long practice and experience. I shall 

 first proceed to a consideration of that want of a con- 

 dition which may be viewed as the result of present 

 disease, or of circumstances tending thereto, and after- 

 wards shall touch on the process of conditioning the 

 horse on his return from grass. 



The accidental causes of morbid condition are va- 

 rious ; a very common one is found in injudicious 

 feeding, both as to quality and quantity. Any sudden 

 alteration in the articles of a horse's diet will frequently, 

 according to the term of horse-amateurs, throw him 

 out of condition ; such as removing him from the 

 grass-field or the straw-yard, to a full allowance of dry 

 hay and corn, with a scanty supply of water to draw 

 up his belly ; all of which are perhaps done at once 

 without the smallest preparation. In these cases, the 

 alimentary canal, being hardly yet in a state of digest- 

 ing capacity, suffers from the increased powers neces- 

 sary to draw nutriment from substances which, al- 

 though in themselves more nutritious, yet are, in this 

 instance, less digestible than those before in use. 

 Thence follows costiveness, heat, and thirst, as well as 

 an unhealthy state of coat, which stares and feels harsh 

 and dry, being a necessary consequence of the ordinary 

 sympathy between the stomach and the skin. A sud- 

 den remove from a generous to a poor diet is unfa- 

 vourable to condition likewise ; for in such case, the 

 chyle, or nutritious pabulum, from whence all the vital 

 organs are recruited, and all the vital energies derive 

 their vigour, cannot be separated in sufficient quan- 

 tities; the blood therefore becomes deteriorated, uni- 

 versal absorption takes place of the softer parts, which 



