H90 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



then, he should very gradually resume his former habits. A 

 horse with a curb, is manifestly unsound, or generally con- 

 demned as unsound. Curb is also an hereditary complaint ; 

 and therefore a horse that has once suffered from it, should 

 always be regarded with suspicion, especially if either of the 

 parents have exhibited it. 



BONE SPAVIN is an affection of the bones of the hock joint. 

 Spavined horses are generally capable of slow work. They 

 are equal to the greater part of the work of the farm, and 

 therefore they should not always be rejected by the small 

 farmer, as they may generally be procured at little price. 

 These horses are not only capable of agricultural work, but 

 they generally improve under it. The lameness in some 

 degree abates, and even the bony tumor to a certain degree 

 lessens. There is sufficient moderate motion and friction of 

 the limb to rouse the absorbents to action, and cause them to 

 take up a portion of the bony matter thrown out, but not 

 enough to renew or prolong inflammation. It cannot be said 

 that the plough affords a cure for spavin, but the spavined 

 horse often materially improves while working at it. For 

 fast work, and for work that must be regularly performed, 

 spavined horses are not well calculated ; for this lameness 

 behind produces great difficulty in rising, and the conscious- 

 ness that he will not be able to rise without painful effort 

 occasionally prevents the horse from lying down at all ; and 

 the animal that cannot rest well cannot long travel far or fast. 

 The treatment of spavin is simple enough, but far from being 

 always effectual. The owner of the horse will neither con- 

 sult his own interest, nor the dictates of humanity, if he suffers 

 the chisel and mallet, or the gimlet, or the pointed iron, or 

 arsenic, to be used ; yet measures of considerable severity 

 must be resorted to. Repeated blisters will usually cause 

 either the absorption of the bony deposit, or the abatement 

 or removal of the inflammation of the ligaments, or, as a last 

 resource, the heated iron may be applied. 



SWELLED LEGS. The fore legs, but oftener the hind ones, 

 and especially in coarse horses, are sometimes subject to con- 

 siderable enlargement. Occasionally, when the horse does 

 not seem to labor under any other disease, and sometimes 

 from an apparent shifting of disease from other parts, the 

 hind legs suddenly swell to an enormous degree from the 

 hock and almost from the stifle to the fetlock, attended by a 

 greater or less degree of heat, and tenderness of the skin, and 

 sometimes excessive and very peculiar lameness. The pulse 



