134 " GROOMING. 



mulates at the roots of the hair, is a provision of nature to 

 defend him from the wind and the cold. 



It is to the stabled horse, highly fed, and little or irregularly 

 worked, that grooming is of so much consequence. Good 

 rubbing with the brush, or the curry-comb, opens the pores of 

 the skin, causes the blood to circulate to the extremities of the 

 body, produces free and healthy perspiration, and stands in 

 the stead of exercise. No horse will carry a fine coat without 

 either unnatural heat, or dressing. They both efiect the same 

 purpose ; they both increase the insensible perspiration ; but 

 the first does it at the expense of health and strength, while 

 the second, at the same time that it produces a glow on the 

 skin, and a determination of blood to it, rouses all the energies 

 of the frame. It would be well if the proprietor of the horse 

 were to insist — and to see that his orders are implicitly obeyed 

 . — that the fine coat, in which he and his groom so much de- 

 light, is produced by honest rubbing, and not by a heated 

 stable and thick clothing, and, most of all, not by stimulating 

 or injurious spices. The horse should be reguhiHy dressed 

 every day, in addition to the grooming that is necessary after 

 work. 



When the weather will permit the horse to be taken out, he 

 should never be groomed in the stable, unless he is an animal 

 of peculiar value, or placed for a time under peculiar circum- 

 stances. Without dwelling on the want of cleanliness, when 

 the scurf and dust which are brushed from the horse lodge in 

 his manger, experience teaches that, if the cold is not too 

 great, the animal is braced and invigorated to a degree that 

 cannot be attained in the stable, from being dressed in the 

 open air. There is no necessity, however, for half the punish- 



