CHOICE OF THE HORSE. 889 



easier than to force the neck to maintain the desired degree of flexion. 

 The first applications last from five to ten minutes ; they would seem 

 to be painful, from the evident fatigue which they occasion. As 

 the lessons increase in length, they give less fatigue to the animal, 

 which soon becomes so accustomed to them that every feeling of un- 

 easiness disappears ; he is walked and trotted as before the habit is 

 acquired ; the neck and head will hereafter be carried in the desired 

 position. 



With the pleasure-horse, training does not stop here. It is always 

 supplemented by daily drives, in which he is driven on the near side 

 of a horse already thus trained, if he is intended for a double team. 

 During these drives he is accustomed to walk, trot, turn, back, step 

 forward, and stop, so that he can easily execute these manreuvres in the 

 hands of the dealer and under the eyes of the purchaser at the time 

 of the sale. 



e. The toilet is a device the object of which is to give a horse 

 a fine and distingue look. It is practised only upon light-draught 

 and heavy-draught horses, and upon those of good breeding, some of 

 whose parts are somewhat too coarse. It consists in removing or 

 shortening, by various means, the hairs scattered over the face, around 

 the mouth, the nostrils, the eyelids, along the lower jaw, and in the inter- 

 maxillary space ; in diminishing the thickness and length of the fore- 

 lock, the mane, the tail, the thickness of the canon, the fetlocks, the 

 pasterns, and the coronets ; finally, in cutting the hairs on the inner 

 surface of the ears. 



The toilet is said to be complete when it is practised upon all the 

 parts ; it is incomplete or partial when one or several of them are thus 

 treated. In the latter case the operation is designated by a special 

 term. 



The hairs scattered over the head in the places of which we have 

 just spoken are removed by being cut with the scissors, extracted, or 

 singed. Extraction is done with the hand, as in plucking a fowl, and 

 is a somewhat painful procedure, the pain even continuing for some days 

 after the operation. Singeing, when it is well done, is greatly prefer- 

 able. It is done with a candle, a small bundle of lighted straw, or an 

 alcohol lamp. Care must be taken, however, not to burn the sur- 

 rounding hairs or the skin. As the singeing proceeds, the dog-grass 

 brush is passed over the surface of the skin to remove the carbonized 

 parts which still adhere to the hairs. The removal of the hairs of the 

 ears, a somewhat difficult procedure, is practised only upon common 

 horses, in order to give greater neatness and make their heads look 



