THE HOUSE AND ITS DISEASES. 49 



which has been the origin of this deviation from nature, 

 but which, to give it a hold on the good opinion of their 

 masters, grooms assert is intended to add to the health 

 and useful qualities of a horse ; but nothing is so absurd, 

 nothing is so unnatural, and nothing is so productive of 

 so many evils to this valuable class of animals as hot 

 stables. Let the advocate for them live for a month 

 (confined as many hours out of the twenty-four as horses 

 are) in the di^essing-room of a warm bath, they may 

 become fine and delicate, but their vigor and durability 

 will be lost. 



The Feet. 



The feet are always an object of particular attention 

 with every prudent horseman. Every morning the feet 

 should be carefully picked and examined. Observe 

 whether the shoes are fast, what state they are in, 

 whether the clenches are sprung, so as to cut the horse. 

 Where the feet grow fast, the shoes ought to be removed 

 once in every three weeks, whether the shoes are worn 

 or not. A want of attention to this particular is the 

 ruin of many horses; ignorant grooms imagine that 

 because the shoes are not worn out, the hoofs want no 

 alteration. The moment a foot becomes too high, so 

 soon it begins to contract ; in hot weather particularly, 

 if the feet are naturally of a diy hard kind, they should 

 be stopped every night with cow dung and yellow clay, 

 and not to forget to have them picked the following 

 morning. 



Exercise. 



ITothing is so convincing a proof of the necessity of 

 exercise to animals, as their love of play in the state of 

 nature, from which natural act we likewise infer, that 

 it is much more necessary to the young and to the 

 robust, than to the old and to the weakly. Survey a 

 spirited horse with the eye of attention, and observe the 

 astonishing difference before and after his liberation from 

 the manger, to which he is sometimes (under the 



