26 GRAZING. 



employed in grooming tlie beast) ; and it may be ob- 

 served that there is no greater aid to increasing their 

 disposition to put up flesh, than giving them as much 

 water as they like before and after every feed. 



A horse should never be watered when heated, or on 

 the eve of any extraordinary exertion. Animals that 

 are liable to colic or gripes, or are under the effect of 

 medicines, particularly such as act on the alimentary 

 canal, and i^redispose to those affections, should get 

 water with the chill off. 



Watering in Public Troughs, or places where every 

 brute that travels the road has access, must be strictly 

 avoided. Glanders, farcy, and other infectious diseases 

 may be easily contracted in this way. 



GRAZING. 



The advantage of grazing, as a change for the better 

 in any, and indeed in every, case where the horse may 

 be thrown out of sorts by accident or disease, becomes 

 very questionable, on account of the artificial state in 

 which he must have been kept, to enable him to meet 

 the requirements of a master of the present day in 

 work. If the change be recommended to restore the 

 feet or legs, this object may be attained, and much 

 better, by keeping the creature in a loose-box without 

 shoes, on a floor covered with sawdust or tan, kept 

 damp as directed (page 10), to counteract whatever 

 slight inflammation may be in the feet and legs, or, 

 best of all, covered with peat-mould, as this does not 

 require to be damped, and the animal can lie down on 

 it; besides, the properties of the peat neutralise the 



