HOW TO BUY AND SELL. 19 



that in proportion to the beauty or length of the hind 

 quarters be also the obliquity or slanting of the shoulder- 

 blades. The wither has nothing to do with this so far 

 as regards thinness, height, and other fancies but it is 

 best when thick at the lower part next the back. A 

 horse thus chosen, with broken knees, unless the tendon 

 is injured, is safer and better, if he has decent hind 

 quarters, than one having upright shoulders, high withers, 

 and all the popular requisites, even with the most 

 immaculately-covered knees. Depend upon it he will 

 have broken knees before he is eight years old. If he 

 escapes it till then, it is a clear proof that he has never 

 been tried; for the first time he is so, down he will be 

 sure to drop. 



When your chief desire is that your horse should not 

 fall, care less about the length and beauty of the hind 

 quarters than the proper form of the fore ones, unless 

 price is no object, when you may have the nearer approx- 

 imation to perfection. Upright shoulders are- not of 

 much consequence in harness, as the weight of draught 

 assists the balance. 



The mere cutting of the skin, without further injury, 

 does not render the horse weaker on his legs than he was 

 before the accident. You may be assured that he was as 

 frightened at falling as his rider; and the only mischief 

 he has .done is in having decreased, not his working, but 

 his market, price. 



% BROKEN KNEES. 



Should the horse at any time have been wounded by 

 falling, the injury he has sustained is to be taken into 

 consideration. 



If he has been down at all, even though the skin has 

 not been broken, there will always remain a scurf under 

 the hair, which, to the practised eye, is easily perceptible. 



