DURING THE WINTER MONTHS. 71 



their best form before the end of May or begin- 

 ning of June. Now, the main object to be at- 

 tended to in the managing of horses in these 

 situations is, to water them, to feed them, to 

 set fair their beds at the accustomed stable-hours, 

 and to pick out their feet once a day. 



I should not have been thus minute in describ- 

 ing how horses ought to be treated in their loose 

 places, but from the very negligent manner in 

 which I have repeatedly seen them attended to 

 in such situations, and this at no very distant 

 period. As I have a pretty good reason to re- 

 member the careless treatment in the wintering 

 of a horse in a loose place, I will, by way of ex- 

 ample, here mention the sort of inattention I 

 mean, as it happened to a horse I was at the 

 time looking after when a boy. 



The groom had ordered me to put my horse 

 into a loose place, and here he was kept in the 

 rough during the winter. I fed and watered him 

 at the usual stable hours, and put clean straw 

 into his stable occasionally. My horse, therefore, 

 stood in his own litter, I think, for two or three 

 months, until at last the stable became so insuf- 

 ferably hot, that, in the morning, when the door 



