" • INTRODUCTION. 



methods of management was also a serious cause of 

 embarrassment to me, since it continually forced me, at 

 great expense and loss of time, to make experiments upon 

 the most vicious horses that could be found, in order to 

 prove the value of my treatment. The experiments in 

 New York City, and other places, referred to in Personal 

 Experience, will in part illustrate this. 



In the winter of '78 my health had become so seriously 

 impaired that I was compelled to give up traveling. I 

 now concluded to carry out at my leisure the purpose 

 which had for some time been developing in my mind, that 

 of writing out the full details of my system, including such 

 knowledge as I believed most valuable to horse-owners for 

 reference. I at first intended to make a work of only 

 about three hundred pages, which would embody merely 

 the simple outlines I gave to classes, with some additions 

 to the treatment for sickness and lameness which I had 

 already given in my old book. But after writing it up and 

 preparing the illustrations I supposed necessar}^, I could 

 see so much that should be added, that I was induced to 

 rewrite the whole matter, bringing it up to about six 

 hundred pages with about three hundred and fifty illustra- 

 tions. When this was completed, I again found it necessary 

 to make still more additions, until it grew upon my hands 

 to its present size and number of illustrations. 



The great point in teaching classes was measured by 

 the success I had in the control of such especially vicious 

 horses as might be presented for experiment, often requir- 

 ing nearly the whole time at my disposal. As a general 

 thing, even the best class of people cared but little for 

 principles, which were really the most important and 

 necessary to a true understanding of the subject. They 

 simply wanted the proofs of what the treatment would do. 

 Consequently, if I could only be successful in hitching up, 



