54 THE HORSE : ITS KEEP AND MANAGEMENT. 



stable. I have known horses have corns on their knees 

 through fetching their bedding from under them where 

 the stable has been washed down clean every day ; in some 

 cases the hair has grown long and coarse, and has given 

 the horse the appearance of having been down and cut its 

 knees. This, of course, would spoil the sale of the horse. 



Sometimes there is a little chaff that the horse is 

 continually throwing out of the manger, this, with dust and 

 chaff from the wheat straw, together with the dampness of 

 the floor, in a very few weeks forms into quite a cake on 

 the top of the floor, when the latter is not washed down. 

 This enables the horse to get good foothold when it 

 attempts to get up, even if it has scraped the straw from 

 under its feet. Farmers' stables, as a rule, are only cleaned 

 out and swept, not washed at all, except in a very few 

 instances, and in these only at the back, where the horse's 

 hind quarters come, and, therefore, when the horse attempts 

 to get up, he has a good foothold, and so has no difficulty 

 in getting on his feet. The same thing may be said of 

 carmen's and all cart horses. 



I do not think one cart horse in a thousand, where the 

 stables are only swept out and the horses are enabled to 

 get a good foothold, become lame through lying down in 

 the stable, or injure themselves in any way. The loose 

 stuff on the floor fills the crevices up, if there are any. 



I find that where horses are bedded down on moss 

 peat there are very few cases of lameness, though I know 

 many people object to it, as it has a dirty appearance in 



