84 TLAIX AND PLEASANT TALK 



fourth compartment should never be wanting for the sick, 

 where they may be nursed and medically treated. 



Horses are more apt to be taken care of tlian cattle. 

 But even they are often more indebted for existence to a 

 stubborn tenacity of Hfe, than to the care of their keepers. 

 -.The horse is a more dainty feeder than ruminating animals, 

 lie should be supplied with a better article of hay ; his 

 grain should never be dirty or musty. 



Hardy farm-horses may even rough out the winter with- 

 out blanketing or any other care than is necessary to sup- 

 ply good food and enough of it. But carriage horses, and 

 those highly prized for the saddle — aristocratic horses — 

 should be more carefully groomed. It is not wise to blan- 

 ket a horse at all, unless it can be always done. If he is 

 liable to change hands ; to be off on journeys under cir- 

 cumstances in which he cannot be blanketed at night, it will 

 be better not to begin it. 



Winter is a good time to kill off spirited horses. They 

 are easily run down by a smashing sleigh-ride pace. Boys 

 and girls, buzzing in a double sleigh like a hive of bees, 

 think that the horses enjoy themselves, at the exhilarating 

 pace of six or eight miles an hour, as much as they do. 

 But this is not ordinarily the worst of it. The horse stands 

 out, after a trip often or fifteen miles, at a post for an hour 

 or two until thoroughly chilled ; then home he races, and 

 goes into the stable, steaming with sweat, to stand without 

 blankets all night. Horses catch cold as much as men do. 

 And a horse-cold is just as bad as a human cold. As there 

 has been some difficulty, in the construction of fanning mills, 

 to gain a strong enough current of wind, we would advise 

 the builders of them to study the construction of a good 

 stable. 



