116 HOESE POETEAITUEE. 



training. Much of this will be saved by your man knowing 

 how to take care of the clothes. Cleanliness is the first and 

 all-important lesson. The bedding must be arranged so 

 that there will be no soiling of the clothes. The horses 

 must be taught to stale outside the stable, the droppings 

 removed as soon as they fall, and the most fastidious will 

 not detect any of the ammoniacal scents that are thought 

 one of the essential disagreeabilities attendant on keeping 

 horses. The decoration of horses is a matter where a 

 good deal of taste can be exhibited by the groom. We 

 have scissors, but I never suffer them to be applied to the 

 fetlocks. Your horses, I see, are not disfigured with any 

 long hairs (this much, at least, being accomplished by 

 blood). Those that have these unsightly appendages had 

 better retain them. No amount of clipping or shearing 

 will give them a high-bred look, and it certainly increases 

 the danger of cracked heels. The mane neatly braided 

 and tied up with ribbons, a clean well polished harness 

 and vehicle, when a horse is going into a race, looks well, 

 and is due your own character for care, and gratifies the 

 spectators. A horse that comes on the track neither too 

 high or low in flesh, a blooming coat, bright eye, and 

 elastic step, needs very little aid of a decorative character 

 to attract admiration. 



PUPIL. I thank you for the hint to scan closely the 

 reasons for a distinctive plan in the training of trotters. 

 I heartily coincide in the idea that our education only 

 begins when we think for ourselves, in lieu of the teacher 

 finding all the brains. I shall leave the answering of 

 your remarks about my predilection for blood, till I re- 

 sume the history of the breeding farm, only begging j our 

 leave to call attention to the well-authenticated fact of a 

 black sow making a famous pointer, showing all the en- 

 thusiam for the sport of the best trained dog, and when 

 her owner would not go to the field, traveling several 



