8UMMEBING HORSES. 443 



showed itself, and this kind of food was considered a panacea 

 for all their complaints. After being kept in a warm stable all 

 the winter, and their coats made as line as possible, they were 

 stripped of their clothing as rapidly as their owners dare, and 

 turned out, often without any hovel to run into in cold and wet 

 weather. The result was frequently that in the autumn they 

 came up broken- winded, or sometimes they died in the season- 

 ing; and in all cases, if healthy, they were fat, pursy, and un- 

 wieldy, and required nearly the whole of the hunting season to 

 fit them for the work they had to do. Certainly, for the pace 

 our forefathers rode, a grass-horse, if fed with corn also, as was 

 often done, was capable of keeping his place through a run, 

 though with a liberal display of lather ; but as it is notorious 

 that a horse in training requires six months, after leaving the 

 grass-field, to prepare him even for a moderate race, and as it is 

 also well-known that a fast thing with hounds is still more try- 

 ing than a race, so it is evident that this fast thing will require 

 something more than grass-fed horseflesh to carry the possessor 

 safely through it. Hence, the plan has been almost universally 

 abandoned, in great measure owing to the writings of " Nim- 

 rod"— Mr. Apperley— on the subject, and the hunter is now 

 almost always summered in a loose box. Besides, there are other 

 objections to turning a hunter out at this season of the year. It 

 is generally the«case that his legs and feet — sometimes one or 

 the other, sometimes all — are inflamed and require rest, blister- 

 ing, firing, &c. Now, if this be the case, the turning out only 

 aggravates the mischief, because these horses are, of all others, 

 the most excited by liberty, from their associating it with their 

 usual occupations, and gallop about, battering their legs on the 

 hard ground, until the original mischief is made ten times 

 greater. If legs or feet are to be mended by turning out, this 

 ought either to be done in the mnter, or into marshes, which are 

 objectionable, because they are peculiarly opposed to the future 

 hard condition of the horse. Upland grasses make the horse 

 flabby enough, but marsh grass is ten times worse. I have 

 turned out many horses in the summer myself, when lame, but 

 I never found them to be improved by it, and some have been 

 utterly ruined by their galloping over the hard turf. If they 

 must go out they should be fettered, which stops their gallops, 



