22 THE HORSE. 



or unfavourable weather. From the nature of a soil 

 and situation similar to the above, a correspondent 

 effect may be rationally expected, on the feet, limbs, 

 and tendinous system of the horses bred ; whilst a 

 clear and elastic air will be equally productive of 

 beneficial effects to their wind and animal spirits. 

 Ample and separated yard room and stabling, with 

 outhouses, and every convenience for the storing of 

 provender, will, in conformity, not be neglected ; to 

 add, for form sake, a convenient residence for the 

 stud groom and his boys and assistants. 



To digress a few words in this place, on the im- 

 mense studs of the ancients, in the original breeding 

 countries of Asia and Africa, from the waste and 

 unappropriated state of their lands — Herodotus writes 

 of royal breeding studs, each to the amount of six- 

 teen thousand mares and four hundred stallions. The 

 vast multitudes of these animals which, in a wild 

 state, roam over the almost boundless continent of 

 South America, and the southernmost borders of the 

 North, originating in a few stallions and mares ex- 

 ported thither by the Spaniards, two or three centuries 

 since, have rendered them of little or no worth, but 

 for their hides : and Captain Ashe, in his amusing 

 and instructive travels, quotes the price of horses 

 about the year 1810, in Louisiana, in any number, 

 at a guinea a head, though he describes them as a 

 breed not to be excelled in the world. It seems that, 

 some time previously, and before the Spaniards had 

 parted with that country to the United States, a 

 dollar was the price of a horse, and half a dollar 

 that of an ox or cow ! Horses are in plenty in the 



