92 AGE OF HORSES. 



consume forage that requires a good deal of cutting, will 

 wear out their incisors, especially their front and middle 

 ones, quicker than animals that are fed, principally, on 

 corn and " chop," which demand but little aid from the 

 incisor teeth for their prehension and mastication. This 

 conforms to what I have been told concerning the rapid 

 wear of the incisors of horses that are fed, in some districts 

 of America, on sugar-cane as a part of their fodder. M. 

 Bizard and Herr Traeger have remarked that the fact of 

 mares which have milk-teeth, being in foal, considerably 

 delays the fall of these teeth and the appearance of the 

 permanent ones. This period of retardation may extend 

 to a year, or even eighteen months. 



The fraudulent practice of extracting certain of the 

 milk incisors, in order to hasten the appearance of the 

 permanent ones, may be successful in its object to an 

 extent of two or three months, at the farthest. It 

 appears that if the operation be performed too long, say, 

 more than six months, before the usual fall of the 

 temporary teeth, the result is not "advanced" in any 

 way ; for the resulting wound soon closes up, and leaves 

 a hard cicatrix. To be effectual, it should not be done 

 more than three months before the natural fall of the 

 teeth. In England, we frequently see that it has been 

 performed on four-and-a-half-year-old mouths, in order 

 to make them appear as those of five-year-old animals. 

 The fraud is easily recognised, from the fact that the 



