115 



warmth and moisture retained, likewise, are very apt 

 to occasion cracks and swelled lego. Those who are 

 advocates for litter under horses during the day, 

 should be very careful to have it changed as often as 

 it is either soiled or wet, for wet litter is one of the 

 strongest causes of blindness. But whoever attends 

 minutely to the subject on an enlarged scale, will be 

 at no loss to determine on the propriety or impropriety 

 of suffering horses to stand constantly on litter. It is 

 my opinion that this custom alone ruins more horses 

 than ail the mails and stage coaches put together. It 

 is the fruitful source of contracted feet, and brings on 

 this ruinous affection much more certainly than the 

 hardest work. Horn has a natural tendency to con- 

 tract inwards, and towards the heat. The feet, it 

 must be evident, are more hotly placed in litter than 

 on the bare and moist ground, consequently the horn 

 gains this additional stimulus to contraction. The 

 litter keeps them dry as well as hot, and thus one of 

 the best preventives of contraction is not suffered to 

 come near them. In my own stables no litter is ever 

 suffered to remain under the fore feet during the day. 

 The horses stand oh the bare bricks, and which in 

 summer are watered to make them more cool: bv 

 which means I have experienced astonishing benetit. 

 Behind, a little litter is strewed, because they are apt 

 to kick and break the bricks with their hinder feet, 

 and because the litter thus placed sucks up the moist- 

 ure of the urine, which would be detrimental to the 

 hinder feet, which are more liable to thrushes than 

 contraction. 



A horse should always be brought into a stable 

 with his skin nearly of the temperature of that stable. 



