70 AGE. 



[from the AMERICAN FARMER.] 



AGE BY FEELING. 



A wonderful discovery recently made in an old Horse^s age ! I 



" ' Tis to the pen and press we mortals owe, 

 All we believe, and almost all we know." 



Since the age of that noble animal, the horse, after 

 a certain period of life, (that is to say) after the marks 

 in his incisors and cuspidati are entirely obliterated, to 

 be able to ascertain his age, with any tolerable degree 

 of certainty, appears to the generality of " liorse age 

 judges" to be a subject of very much uncertainty. I 

 now take the liberty of laying before the public, 

 through the medium of your paper, an infallible method, 

 (subject to very few exceptions) of ascertaining it in 

 such a manner, after a horse loses his marks, or after 

 he arrives to the age of nine years or over ; so that 

 any person concerned in horses, even of the meanest 

 capacity, may not be imposed upon in a horse's age, 

 from nine years of age and over, more than three 

 years at farthest, until the animal arrives at the age ot 

 twenty years and upwards, by just feeling the sub- 

 maxillary hone, or the hone of the lower jaw. 



This method I discovered, by making many ana- 

 tomical observations on the skulls of dead horses and 

 repeated dissections. In order, therefore, to elucidate 

 the above, I must in the first place beg leave to remark ; 

 tha the submaxillary bone, or the lower jaw bone 



