STALLIONS, BROOD MARES AND FOALS. 145 



feeding. All that was there said concerning 

 the harmfulness of this practice as applied to 

 stallions might well be repeated here with in- 

 creased emphasis. It is undoubtedly one of the 

 most frequent causes of barrenness and the 

 dangers attending parturition are more than 

 trebled in cases of excessively fat animals. 

 Deaths from parturient fever, or milk fever, are 

 almost unknown in mares that are kept actively 

 at work and are in only moderate flesh at the 

 time of foaling. A case well illustrating this 

 point came under my own notice recently of a 

 farmer who had four mares that dropped foals 

 in one season. The mares were all very fat and 

 had been kept in high show condition for a year 

 or more. One of the mares died of parturient 

 fever and he lost three out of the four foals. 



I have had occasion heretofore to quote from 

 that most excellent authority, Prof. Law, of 

 Cornell University. A few years ago he pre- 

 pared, at my request, for publication in a jour- 

 nal which was then under my control, an article 

 on the causes of difficult impregnation and bar- 

 renness, and from this article I quote so much 

 as relates to brood mares: 



Females that are not put to the male until long after they 

 have reached maturity are often difficult to impregnate for 

 the first time. This is frequently noticed in mares that have 

 spent a good part of a lifetime at hard work: and in these 

 cases it may often happen that the long inactivity of the 

 generative organs has produced an inaptitude for procrea- 



