14)6 MODERN FARRIEE. 



76. Cleanliness. 



No damp or wet litter should on any account be 

 permitted to lie in the stable. Cleanliness is essen- 

 tial to health. The stalls should therefore be care- 

 fully cleaned out every morning, and the moist 

 litter removed to a distance from the stable. The 

 sharpness of the volatile salts, arising from the urine 

 which is absorbed by tlie straw, is extremely hurtful 

 to the eyes of the horse ; while damp litter softens 

 the hoof, swells the legs, and produces many other 

 inconveniences. 



77. Food. 



When the horse ranges at liberty in the fields, he 

 chooses his food, and seldom errs ; but when shut 

 up in a stable, he is exposed to great danger, both 

 from the quantity and the quality of the food given 

 to him. In this state he has to wait the conve- 

 nience of the keeper ; and being sometimes obliged 

 to fast long, the horse eats so voraciously as to over- 

 load his stomach and occasion great danger. 



Mr. Clark, of Edinburgh, mentions two instances 

 of horses having died from excessive eating. *A 

 young draught-horse was fed in the morning with 

 too great a quantity of barley mixed with pease, 

 and had been allowed to drink water immediately 

 after. After having travelled a few miles, he was 

 observed, about the middle of the day, to be very 

 uneasy, frequently attempting to lie down. As 

 soon as he was unharnessed, he laid down, and rolled 

 about, frequently lying on his back, starting up 

 suddenly, and turning his head towards his belly. 

 He continued in this manner, in great agony, till 

 towards the next morning, when "he died. Upon 

 opening his body, the stomach was found burst, the 

 barley and pease mostly entire, only greatly swelle(^ 



