STABLES. 



97 



rally, as a matter of course, are carefully designed and fitted 

 with a view to providing everything that long experience of a 

 hunting establishment shows to be necessary for the horse's 

 comfort and well-being. 



The question of summering the hunter has provoked much 

 discussion. Some authorities are all for turning him out 

 others for keeping him in his box, and in the multitude or 

 counsellors there is confusion. The old fashion was to turn 

 the hunter out for his summer's run, and of this fashion Beck- 

 ford was an advocate. ' After a long and tiresome winter,' 

 says the accomphshed thinker of 'Thoughts upon Hunting,' 

 ' surely the horse deserves some repose. Let him then enjoy 

 his short-lived liberty ; and as his feet are the part that suffer 

 most, turn him out into a soft pasture. . . . Can standing in a 

 hot stable do any good ? Is it not soft ground and long rest 

 that will best refresh his limbs ? I have often remarked that, 

 thus treated, they catch fewer colds, have the use of their limbs 

 more freely, and are less hable to lameness than other horses.' 

 Lawrence, too, the author of an excellent work, is here in 

 sympathy with Beckford. He would have every hunter turned 

 out ' to enjoy that best of all coolers and alterants, the spring 

 grass, the purifying elastic external air and the dew of heaven. 

 The holiday of a month or two out of the twelve is a kindness 

 we owe to the horse which so dearly earns it.' 



This is exceedingly plausible. No man would deny the 

 good hunter that deserved repose and dearly earned holiday 

 for which these writers plead ; but the question is whether 

 the horse benefits, whether it is best for him, and as a 

 necessary consequence, best for his master, that he should be 

 thus treated. Beckford, it will be observed, pleads for the soft 

 pasture and condemns the hot stables. As already set forth, 

 we would have no stable hot ; and with regard to soft pasture, 

 where can it always be found during a hot dry summer ? The 

 picture of the faithful horse peacefully cropping the grass in some 

 pleasant meadow, his feet covered by cool dewy vegetation, is 

 a very pleasing one. But as a matter of fact what usually 



H 



