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362 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



casion, which prudence and foresight can guard against, for 

 fever and heat to arise. Adopt for the habitual rule of ac- 

 tion the old and homely, yet most excellent adage, that " an 

 ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure ." Forestall 

 disease, and no encounter with it need be anticipated. In 

 this department there is great room for improvement on the 

 part of our farmers. It should receive a greater share of 

 thought and investigation. Its -intelligent study, and a uni- 

 form practice in harmony with its laws, would well repay 

 every man who has any thing at all to do with the care of 

 stock. 



If the minds of those having the charge of horses could 

 be aroused to the fact that three-fourths of the ills which 

 befall overworked and ill-treated horse-flesh in civilized com- 

 munities was due to neglect and mismanagement — to expos- 

 ures, deprivations, and abuses — what a vast aggregate of 

 suftering might be prevented, and how great pecuniary ad- 

 vantages might be secured! Our farmers should be reading 

 men, thinking men — men of intelligence and broad culture. 

 They should be reformers of abuses and instructors of igno- 

 rance ; and even if they were men of science it would not do 

 them a grain of harm. They should seek to learn the best 

 systems of management, and practice those only. They 

 should study the laws of health ami every thing pertaining 

 to the sanitary condition of their noble servant, the horse, 

 and make their treatment of him conform to the knowledge 

 thus acquired. When this becomes the case generally, in- 

 stead of exceptionally, as at present, the horse will be freed 

 from disease to an extent 'that probably few would now 

 deem credible. 



That man who is ignorant of the physiological require- 

 ments of his horse, and of the pathology and treatment of 

 the animal's diseases, is to be pitied when his horse is taken 

 i ill. He is in the predicament of a man whose house is on 



fire, and he trying to put out the flames. Poor fellow ! his 

 is a diflScult task. Better, a thousand times better, that he 

 had never allowed the fire to get under way at all^iad pre- 



