126 ■ HORSES: 



ablest physiologists of our own day. Speaking, as he 

 says, not from theory, but from wide and varied ex- 

 perience, Xenophon insists that in order to ensure 

 the healthiness of horses, stable floors must not be 

 smooth or damp ; that they should be lined with 

 stones of irregular shapes, of much the same size as 

 the animal's hoof, and that the ground outside the 

 stable, on which it is groomed, should be covered in 

 parts with loose stones laid down in large quantities, 

 but surrounded by an iron rim to prevent their being 

 scattered. Standing on these the horse, Xenophon 

 adds, will be in much the same condition as if he 

 were traveling on a stony road, and as he must move 

 his hoof when he is being rubbed down as much as 

 when he is walking, the stones thus spread about will 

 strengthen the frogs of his feet. It is not easy to 

 repress a certain feeling of shame at the disingenu- 

 ousness of modern writers who have tried to shirk 

 the difficulty by saying that Xenophon had no knowl- 

 edge of our hard roads. It is enough to reply that 

 he speaks distinctly of roads covered with stones, 

 and of the benefit which the horse derives from 

 traversing them. There is not a word to justify a 

 suspicion that he would have shrunk from the hardest 

 roadway of modern times. Xenophon is thus in com- 

 plete agreement with Lord Pembroke's remark that 

 the constant use of litter in a stable makes the feet 

 tender and causes swelled legs. In his judgment the 

 bare stone pavement will cool, harden, and improve a 

 horse's feet merely by his standing on it. Acting on 

 the same principle, Vegetius, as *' Free Lance " re- 



