NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 101 



the disappearance of windgalls, spavins, and tumors of every 

 kind. 



Horses kindly and not prematurely used, sometimes live to 

 between thirty-five and forty-five years of age ; and a well 

 authenticated account is given of a barge horse that died in 

 his sixty-second year. 



Under this head of age, nothing beyond the cut of the com- 

 plete aged mouth, with the accompanying description of it, 

 would have been here inserted, were it not for the prevalent 

 opinion, inculcated by interested dealers in the United States, 

 that the age of a horse, after eight or nine years, can be as 

 certainly and as exactly predicated by mouth-mark, and his 

 exact age guaranteed accordingly, as previously to that 

 period. 



Summing up all that need be offered on this particular point, 

 we simply say, that if one chooses to buy a horse past mark 

 of mouth, he must do so on his own judgment and at his own 

 risk ; for to credit any assertions, or to give ear to any horse- 

 dealer's opinion on the subject, is sheer folly. 



