174 GENERAL TREATMENT OF HORSES. 



Fourthly, a saving in expense. This is an ob- 

 jection too trifling to be admitted in opposition to 

 any real advantages. It was calculated by Nim- 

 rod,* allowing only four shillings per week to have 

 been the charge for each horse, supposing him to 

 have been summered at grass, that the extra ex- 

 pense of his six hunters, summered after his system, 

 which we shall further explain, amounted to only 

 c£^13, 18s. The mere chance in favour of exemp- 

 tion from accidents to which horses abroad are 

 liable, is worth more than this inconsiderable sum 

 to the man who keeps six hunters in his stable ; 

 but twice its amount would be realised in the sale 

 of any of the six, if offered at the hammer in No- 

 vember, beyond the sum he would have produced, 

 had he been summered solely in the fields. 



Fifthly, we would go any length in advocating 

 the extreme of kind treatment to so noble an ani- 

 mal as the horse; but experience has taught us, 

 that neither the open field, nor the shade, is a bed 

 of roses, in the summer months, to the well-bred, 

 and naturally thin-skinned hunter ; for the oestrum, 

 or blood-sucker, pursues him in each ; and the des- 

 perate attempts he often makes to avoid them, 

 shows the horror he has of their attacks. But, 

 unluckily for the advocates of this system, one of 

 the greatest evils of the out-of-door system here 



* Two tons five hundred weights of hay, at £4 per ton,. ..£9 



Seventy-one bushels of oats, at 4s. 6d, per bushel, 14 4 



Beans, 1 10 



£24 14 



Six horses at grass nine weeks, at 4s. per week, 10 16 



£13 18 



