53 



healthy condition of the horse's foot ; and any expectation 

 of retaining 'perfectly sound feet with stalls and rack chains 

 mvolves an impossibihty ; and never wUl be reahzed. 



It is sometimes alleged as an objection to loose boxes, 

 that they offer great facilities to gross feeding horses, to 

 eat their beds : but, as this e\'il naturally suggests its own 

 remedy, I should not have noticed it, except for the purpose 

 of calhng attention to a j^'^i'ticular form of muzzle, that 

 I invented some years ago, and have found to be effectual in 

 preventing this evil, (for a very great evil it imquestionably 

 is,) while it secures to the poor beast his free breathing.""' 



The t\^'0 muzzles in common use are extremely incon- 

 venient and objectionable ; a horse soon learns to eat through 

 the open one ; and the closed one, usually called a setting 

 muzzle, is so insufferably hot and suffocating to wear, that 

 it amounts in fact to an instrument of torture. 



Having said thus much about keeping the feet in a 

 sound and healthy condition, it may be well to inquire, 

 what precise meaning attaches to the expression " sound feet," 

 as it is met witli in common use ; because perhaps there is 

 no word in the English language, which in its true and 

 legitimate signification implies so much, and in its almost 

 universal acceptation means so little, as the word sound, when 

 applied to horses' feet. The great latitude, extended to the 

 meaning of words in horse deahng transactions, has shorn 

 the one in question of every attribute, which gave it value ; 

 and has reduced it to a miserable cheat, conveying no other 

 guarantee, than that tlie horse is not palpably lame in one 



* Plate 9. 



