1000 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



foals to be fed all winter with a little corn twice a day, w.th hay, oat-straw, &c. Where carrots can be 

 procured, they form a most excellent feed for colts of every age, on which they will thrive surprisingly. 

 With the use of carrots, no corn is necessary, nor any caution requisite against an over-heating effect froni 

 a noore stimulating diet. Care should, however, be taken to cut them properly, allowing a well littered 

 shed, or warm straw-yard. Colts fed at home with green meat, cut during summer, should have a daily 

 range on a common, or elsewhere, for exercise. Yearlings to be carefully kept separate from the milch 

 mares. 



6h50. The time for gelding colts is usually the .same in both parts of the kingdom, which is, when thev 

 are about a year old; although, in Yorkshire, this operation is frequently suspended till the spring of the 

 second year, especially when it is intended to keep them on hand, and witliout employing them in labour 

 till the following season. Parkinson disSjjproves of delaying this operation so long, and recommends 

 twitching the colts, a practice well known to the ram-breeders, any time after a week old, or as soon after 

 as the testicles are come down ; and this method, he says, he has followed himself with great success. 

 {Parkinson on Live Stock, vol. ii. p. 74.) Blaine's remarks on the subject of castration appear worthy of 

 notice : he says, when the breed is particularly good, and considerable expectations are formed on the colt, 

 it is always prudent to wait till twelve months : at this period, if his fore parts are correspondent with his 

 hinder, proceed to castrate ; but if he be not sufficiently well up before, or his neck be too long and thin, 

 and his shoulders spare, he will assuredly improve by being allowed to remain whole six or eight months 

 longer. Another writer suggests for experiment, the spaying of mares, thinking they would work better, 

 and have more wind than geldings. {MarshaVs Yorkshire, vol. ii. p. 169.) But he does not appear to have 

 been aware that this is by no means a new experiment : for Tusser, who wrote in 1562, speaks of gelding 

 fillies as a common practice at that period. The main objection to this operation is not that brood mares 

 would become scarce, as he supposes, but that,- by incapacitating them from breeding in case of accident, 

 and in old age, the loss in this expensive species of live-stock would be greatly enhanced. An old or lame 

 raare would then be as worthless as an old or lame gelding is at present. 



6651. The rearing of horses is carried on in some places in so systematical a manner, as to combine the 

 profit arising from the advance in the age of the animals, with that of a moderate degree of labour, before 

 they are fit for the purposes to which they are ultimately destined. In the midland counties, the breeders 

 sell them while yearlings, or perhaps, when foals ; namely, at six or eighteen months old, but most generally 

 the latter. They are mostly brought up by the graziers of Leicestershire, and the other grazing parts of 

 the midland counties, where they are grown among the grazing-stock until the autumn following. At 

 two years and a half old they are bought up by the arable farmers, or dealers of Buckinghamshire, 

 Berkshire, Wiltshire, and other western counties, when they are broken into harness, and worked till 

 they are five, or more generally, six years old. At this age the dealers buy them up again to be sent to 

 London, where they are finally purchased for drays, carts, waggons, coaches, the army, or any other pur- 

 pose for which they are found fit. (Marshal's Economy of the Midland Counties, vol. i. p. SI 1.) 



66.52. In the west of Scotland, a similar mode of transferring horses from hand to hand is common. 

 The farmers of Ayrshire, and the counties adjacent, who generally grow corn on not more than one fourth, 

 or at the most, one third of their arable land, and occupy the remainder with a dairy stock, purchase 

 young horses at the fair of Lanark and Carnwath before mentioned ; work them at the harrows in the 

 following spring when below two years old ; put them to the plough next winter, at the age of two and a 

 half, and continue to work them gently till they are five years old, when they are sold again at the Ruther- 

 glen and Glasgow markets at a great advance of price, to dealers and farmers from the south-eastern 

 counties. A Considerable number of horses, however, are now bred in the Lolhians, Berwickshire, and 

 Roxburghshire, the very high ptices of late having rendered it profitable to breed them, even upon good 

 arable ground ; but many farmers of these counties, instead of breeding, still prefer purchasing two and 

 a half or three and a half year old colts, at the markets in the west country, or at Newcastle fair, in 

 October : they buy in a certain number yearly, and sell an equal number of their work horses before they 

 are so old as to lose much of their value. {General Report of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 182.) 



Sect. XII. Training of Horses. 



6353. Horses are trained for various purposes, but principally for carrying our persons or drawing our 

 burdens. Formerly, burdens were principally borne on the back by pack-horses, but the improvements 

 in our roads have removed them from the back, to machines called carriages, drawn by means of harness 

 applied over the person of the horse. Under saddle, we train horses as racers, hunters, hackneys, or troop 

 horses. In harness we use them in coaches, stages, chariots, and various lighter vehicles, or we emi)loy 

 them in waggons, carts, ])loughs, and various other agricultural or commercial machines. Horses are held 

 in obedience by means of bridles, with appendages called reins, which are long or short, as used in riding 

 or driving. Horses are directed and urged forward by whip, spur, and language, and they are chastised 

 by the same means. 



6634. The directive language used to horses ought to be every where the same, which is the more easily 

 accomplished, as words or phrases are sufficient for giving every requisite direction to a horse. The first 

 of these words may be " on," or go on, or merely the common chuck of the tongue, &c as used by all 

 coachmen in the world ; the second to make the horse go to the right-hand side," right-hand;" the 

 third, to the left-hand side, " left-hand ;" the fourth to make them stop, may be " stop," or " stand-still." 

 Any attempt to modify these directions ought to be given in the correct language of the country, and not 

 in provincial words, as go on, slowly, briskly, right-hand, a little round, or turn, left-hand, a little, or left- 

 hand and round, stop, or stand gently, &c. As a proof that only four words are requisite for giving every 

 requisite direction to horses, we may mention that foreigners in Stockholm, Petersburgh, and Moscow, 

 who know nothing of the language, require only four corresponding words of Swedish or Russian to 

 direct the native coachmen and sledge drivers to any street, house, or place, the situation of which they 

 know by the maps, or otherwise. 



6655. The three natural and ordinary movements of horses are, walking, trotting, and galloping, to 

 which some horses naturally add another, which is known by the name of " ambling," or " pacing," 

 The trot is, perhaps, the most natural motion of a horse, but the pace, and even the gallop, are most easy 

 to the rider. 



6656. In training saddle horses, the first thing is to make them familiar with man, and other general 

 objects, and which is best effected at the earliest periods, which then saves almost all the trouble of break- 

 ing, and docility follows as a matter of course : to effect this, the greatest kindness should be used to the 

 colts from the moment they are dropped : they should be accustomed to be handled, should be fed with 

 bread patted in various parts of the body, have light matters put on their heads and backs, and subjects 

 of different colours and forms should be shown them with caution. While at foot, the mare and foal 

 should be led out into roads, and where carriages pass, during which time nothing should be allowed to 

 intimidate the foal. By this management, the animal will be easily prepared for the future operations} 

 and it is thus that the single foal the ploughed-land farmer breeds, and which daily follows the mother 

 in her work, as it were breaks itself. 



6657. Bucking is the next operation, and if the colt has been judiciously used, and taught f;imihanty 

 and docility by early handling and kindness, it is by no means difticult. It should be commenced before 

 the colt is two and a half or three years old. The first backing of a horse is a thing of great consequence, 

 as his value afterwards very much depends of it. The application of the saddle should be gradually done, 

 and without alarm to the horse. After a colt has become habituated to the saddle and bridle, and has 

 been exercised some time, morning and evening in them, and become somewhat obedient, it is usually 



