THEIR FEED AND THEIR FEET. 59 



" reserved force " denotes the balance of physical 

 power on the part, we will say, of the horse, to con- 

 tinue working on any given day beyond his ordinary 

 daily habit and without extreme weariness ; or, at 

 least, it is here used in that sense. As this capacity 

 is diminished by inaction, or augmented by use, we 

 have the ill or the well-conditioned hors«. The 

 amount of labor the horse can accomplish up to, or 

 nearly to, the point above mentioned, may be said 

 to constitute his reserved force — his vital bank ac- 

 count — except the power to continue to live and to 

 recover, supposing that he were to be pressed to 

 complete exhaustion. Strictly speaking, this would 

 represent the limit of his reserved force ; but we 

 have in view the former definition. 



Let us, for example, take the case of a gentleman's 

 driving horse, little used — one, say, that has for years 

 seldom done more than his five to ten miles roading 

 every day at a '' mixed " rate of speed ; seldom mak- 

 ing more than ten, as often making only five, and 

 frequently remaining in his stall all day.* Let us 

 suppose (for we can do no more than this, nor is more 

 needed to illustrate my meaning) that he could make 

 to-day, at an ordinary " across country " or road rate, 

 forty miles (or twenty at a sharp pace), and, though 

 coming to stable pretty tired, still not overtaxed. 



* A large box-stall, with a hard floor and no litter, may be 

 reckoned so much "to the good"; since "every step the horse 

 takes up to a certain limit is an advantage ; and to remain abso- 

 lutely inactive for a single day hitched in a narrow stall, is, as a 

 rule, a positive injury. 



