BREEDING, STOCK-RAISING, ETC. 449 



feome hay-stack or straw-rick ; or, perhaps, without any shel- 

 ter whatever to protect him from the biting frosts, the bleak 

 winds, the driving sleet, and the deep snows of winter ; and 

 frequently with nothing to support life but corn-stalk fodder, 

 or the scanty amount of food pulled from the hay-stack. 

 Under such usage he barely survives the winter, and starts 

 with the spring a poor, emaciated, broken-down starveling, 

 destitute of all spirit and vigor. His vital energies have re- 

 ceived a shock from which they will never wholly recover. 



Such is the history of thousands of colts all over the land. 

 In many sections the farmer seems to know no better than 

 to believe that colts and calves require no housing during 

 the winter, when the fact is that they are the ones most of 

 all among the farmer's stock that need such shelter. The 

 strong, ha¥dy horse could bear these exposures much better; 

 but it is not he that is turned out to the weather — ^it is the 

 young, tender colt, inured to no hardships, and quite unfitted 

 to brave the storm and cold, that is compelled to undergo 

 this unfeeling treatment. If stable-room is deficient, make 

 a shelter of. some kind for some of the other stock, and let 

 the colt have the vacated stall. One winter's severe exposure 

 is equivalent to the loss of a year's growth. The colt be- 

 comes unthrifty and in bad plight, and shows want of spirit 

 and activity; whereupon the farmer complains that he has 

 been disappointed in that colt ; that the stock is not what he 

 supposed it to be, with more language of the same sort ; and 

 all the while the colt is good enough, the stock all that he 

 ever imagined it to be, and the fault lies wholly with him- 

 self. He seems to have forgotten that the limit of the en- 

 durance belonging to colt-flesh is soon reached, and really 

 ought to wonder that the poor thing has lived at all. 



It is all-important that the colt "get no backset" after 

 weaning-time. l^othing will pay the owner better than kind, 

 generous attention to his growing stock. The young animal 

 needs it now; his flesh an^ skin are tender; his bones and 

 joints are still soft and unformed, and exposure at this 

 period often works irreparable mischief. The joints are af- 

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