HOW TO BUY AND SELL. 33 



BANDAGES. 



Where the constant use of bandages is required to 

 enable a horse to perform the ordinary work of horses of 

 his class, he is UNSOUND. 



Bandages are good things properly applied, and there 

 is a great deal of humanity in their seasonable appropria- 

 tion and right use. You should remember, however, 

 that there may also be "too much of a good thing," and 

 that by over doing the thing, or bandaging improperly, 

 you defeat your own purpose. 



Why is the hair on that horse's legs so curled? I can 

 never see it without pitying the poor brute, and thinking 

 of the purgatory he has endured, through the ignorance 

 of the groom ignorance it must be; kindness dictated 

 the use of bandages, but kindness did not intend them tc 

 be a torture, which they became by being thus tight and 

 stopping circulation. As errors arising from good nature 

 are the easiest cured; once show that these errors cause 

 the pain which should be prevented, and they are not 

 likely to occur again. When bandages are used, they 

 should never be drawn tightly round the horse's legs, for 

 in that case they weaken instead of strengthen, and 

 cause the hair to curl. Put bandages lightly and easily 

 round the leg; a very little keeps them up, and should 

 they come down a hundred times, it is better than that 

 the horse should be tortured once. There are very few 

 who will not, in a trifling number of applications, acquire 

 the habit of fitting them so easily that they are a great 

 comfort and very serviceable to the legs under many cir- 

 cumstances, and will not curl the hair or leave unsightly 

 marks; nor will they, when thus properly put on, punish 

 the horse, or slip down. 



SPLENTS. 



Splents are hard bony lumps at the inside of the leg, 

 towards the back of the cannon bone, anywhere below 



