26 HORSES: 



aimed to allow some two hours or more — the more 

 the better — for that digestion which takes place in 

 the stomach, before she was harnessed, and the 

 evening meal was never given until long enough 

 after she came to the stable to insure her being well 

 rested from her labor, and this though her dinner 

 was postponed till a late hour at night. Whenever 

 I had occasion, and I sometimes took occasion, to 

 give her some early work, her breakfast would be 

 postponed until long after the driye was finished, or 

 to a convenient hour when rested and not obliged 

 to resume work soon thereafter. Within four months 

 this little fat, soft, * logy ' mare was transformed into 

 a clean-bodied, tough, hard little roadster that would 

 take two in a buggy eight miles an hour for three or 

 four hours, and after an hour's rest take them back 

 again in the same time, and do it, too, without whip- 

 ping or showing any symptom of lagging. When I 

 sold her I told the buyer how I fed her. Did he 

 learn anything ? No, indeed. * Well,' said he, ' I 

 shall give her all she wants three times a day, as long 

 as / own her.' I see her now every day ; she is just 

 about where she was when I took her — fat and soft, 

 and will sweat profusely if driven fifteen miles in 



three hours." 



EXTRA RATIONS. 



Occasionally horses are, through cruelty, and some- 

 times unwittingly on the part of their drivers, driven 

 to exhaustion ; and it frequently happens that a 

 horse gives out without having been pushed hard, 

 and to the complete surprise of his owner, who can 



