406 AGRICULTUBE AND THE HORSE. 



vide brick floors for all that portion of the stall which 

 is occupied by the horse's fore-feet, — a practice which 

 has, with the aid of tar-ointment, protected me, for 

 more than twenty years of hard driving on hard roads, 

 from sore-toed horses, and has sent out of my stables a 

 foot which every farrier in town recognizes the in- 

 stant he puts his buttrice into it. For the feet, then, 

 of the colt and the idle horse, furnish the earth as 

 a standing-place : for the feet of the working-horse, 

 furnish a brick or stone floor. By such a floor alone 

 can you secure to your colt a good foot ; and in this 

 way alone, moreover, can you be sure of giving him a 

 good leg, a well-shaped ankle, and a firm and substan- 

 tial knee. I know not how it is ; but the misshapen 

 ankles and shaky knees which come out of hot stables 

 with wooden floors among the colts which have wintered 

 there constitute one of the peculiar phenomena of the 

 business of rearing these animals. But so it is; and 

 I urge upon you all, whether you like horses or not, 

 whether you fear or trust them, to give them the soUd 

 ground to stand on, whenever it is practicable, in their 

 youth, and any thing but wood in their days of matu- 

 rity and toil. 



So important do I consider this matter of floors, that 

 I pass by all the feeding arrangements of the stall, 

 whether for hay or grain, as of secondary consideration. 

 I think it is a poor plan, however, to compel a colt to 

 put his head through a hole in order to get at his food, 

 or to thrust it under a low beam, or to drag his hay 



