THE HORSE. 33 



tering a restorative. The hunter in this case is ex- 

 actly in the situation of a horse just getting conva- 

 lescent after severe sickness, but too w^eak to eat 

 his customary food until he has been strengthened 

 Dy tonics. Is it not, then, absurd to treat a horse in 

 perfect health, nor exhausted by extreme fatigue, in 

 a similar manner, — that is, to coddle him, for so such 

 treatment under such circumstances is properly 

 called 1 He w^ill eat w^ell enough if he has plenty 

 of w^ater to drink. But if he should be very warm, 

 and loath to eat, give him a reasonable quantity, say 

 six quarts, of chilled icater, and then try w^hether he 

 will eat some corn well ivetted. 



Persons who resort to this messing or codling 

 have, of course, a pretext for it, which pretext 

 usually is that they have driven too hard. When 

 this is really the fact, the better way is to give the 

 horse an extra allowance of corn : he will eat it. 

 It is the extreme pa-ce which does the mischief with 

 the hunter; but when commercial men distress their 

 horses from the same cause, they ought never to be 

 trusted with another. If horses are properly used, 

 and yet are off their feed, it is not for want of gruel, 

 and the sooner a veterinary surgeon is called in the 

 better. The trotter has gruel given to him during 

 his performance, because there is no time to feed 

 him otherwise, or to prevent him being overcome 

 by excessive fatigue. Both the hunter and trotter 

 are given gruel on the same principle as a man in 

 nver-taxing his physical powers for a wager would 

 need brandy as a stimulus. The reader may rest 

 assured, and we repeat it, that the roadster is rarely 

 in want of gruel. 



The mare previously mentioned as having per- 

 formed eighty miles for two successive days and 

 one hundred miles in one day, when between thirty 

 and forty years old, never had gruel. Many similar 

 instances might be mentioned, but in these caaea 



