482 AMEKICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK 



and stiff throughout his whole life. Moderate exercise should 

 be begun quite early, but full service of no kind should be 

 required until the fourth year. 



But the greatest abuse in this way is the overworking of 

 mares with foal, as mentioned in the preceding section. In- 

 juring two lives at once, it is a shameful outrage. 



Horses that have been idle for some time, either in the 

 stable or pasture, should not be returned to hard labor all 

 at once, but with judicious caution. Upon this point, how- 

 ever, we have dwelt so explicitly in the section on Exercise, 

 in Chapter XV II, that we need do nothing more here than 

 refer the reader to those pages. 



WHIPPING AND BEATING. 



One would think that the horse had hardships enough, in 

 his daily drudgery, without being made the innocent victim 

 of the crabbedness and ill-nature of those who happen to be 

 in charge of him. ^NTevertheless, it is amazing how much 

 thoughtless, and often purposed, wickedness there is exhibited 

 in his maltreatment. Some men have a practice, whenever 

 their affairs do not go just to sUit them, of getting up a row 

 with their teams, and venting their spleen upon their poor, 

 unresisting brutes. Many appear to find one of their dearest 

 delights in the torture of dumb animals, and can have noth- 

 ing to do with the horse without expending upon him some 

 of the malice and cruelty of which their ugly natures are full, 

 in the form of kicks, blows, and other brutalities. 



Even many a man of better disposition knows no other 

 possible means of reducing a fractious horse to submis- 

 sion, or of quieting a restive one, than the unstinted ap- 

 plication of the whip; and when such monsters as those 

 referred to above imagine they have found some pretext for 

 their outrages, there is hardly any telling to what length 

 they may carry their abuses. We have seen such lashings 

 and beatings inflicted upon the horse as would make the 

 blood run chill in the veins of any person not utterly lost to 

 the feelings of humanity. 



