226 HOKSE PORTRAITURE. 



his frame may be brought the sooner to endure great 

 fatigue ? I think that other processes are better, yet it is 

 a matter of so much moment, that we ought not to take 

 any one's assertions, unless such assertions are based on 

 good judgment, or have been put to the proof. 



PUPIL. Your former remarks that air, food, exercise, and 

 a strict attention to cleanliness, were the great adjuncts 

 to successful training, appear to cover the whole ground. 

 The variations that can be made with the almost endless 

 varieties of food, and the difference in exercise from the 

 walk to the fast trot, will meet the wants of, at least, a 

 majority of horses. With what little knowledge I have 

 of training, I should never have thought of drenching or 

 balling to hasten condition. If one of my horses were 

 taken with scouring, I should try at once to check it by 

 giving more hay and less grain ; sometimes using a drink 

 made with starch or wheat flour, and if the case was bad, 

 using injections of the same material. Oftentimes suck- 

 ling colls are greatly troubled with this complaint, and if 

 it is not stopped, it will kill them in a very short time. I 

 seldom fail to cure it by restricting the mother to flour 

 and water for drink, with a very little tannin in it. But 

 if it has not been attended to at once, the poison becomes 

 disseminated in the system of the foal, and both have to 

 be treated. In that case I give two or three raw eggs, 

 broken, into the colt's mouth, and should these fail, a strong 

 cup of black coffee will, nine times in ten, effect a cure. 

 I was much amused at a friend of mine who left with me 

 three mares to stay during the season. One of them had 

 a foal by the Falcon, which the man thought very highly 

 of. When ready to leave, he asked me how I treated colts 

 with the scours. I answered as I have been telling you. 

 That would not do for him, and I must accompany him to 

 the town, where he would get me the medicine that I must 

 use, in case his colt should be unfortunate enough to be 



