EAELY WOBKING OF CAttT COLTS. 297 



splints, 'spavins, strained loins, shoulders, and fetlocks, 

 should begin to develop themselves in their colts when 

 they have been worked a short time, or that horse 

 breeding is a losing game, for nine farmers out of ten 

 never give it a fair chance, as by working their colts 

 too young' they render them comparatively valueless, 

 whereas, if they could be content to let them run on 

 sweet dry pasture-land until five years old or there- 

 abouts, it would pay them well, as their forms and size 

 would then be properly developed ; their bones would 

 be bones, and not mere gristle, ready to shoot out of its 

 place and deform the colt on the least undue strain of a 

 tender part. What folly ! what inhumanity ! what 

 bad policy ! to take a fine promising two-year-old colt, 

 sound and right as a trivet in every respect, to a village 

 blacksmith, and allow him to cut and carve his feet, un- 

 til they will fit in many instances not a horse shoe, 

 but a shapeless piece of iron. Why, any man with a 

 grain of common sense ought to know better than to 

 allow colts' feet to be sliced up and nails driven into 

 them before they have attained their natural size, shape, 

 and consistency, so as to be able to bear it ; every other 

 part of the colt is growing at two years old, and why 

 shouldn't his feet be growing too ? But let me ask 

 those who work their colts at that age, how they expect 

 the feet to grow and expand to the shape intended by 

 nature, when they are bound together with an iron 

 shoe and nails ? Cripple a horse's feet and he will not 

 be worth a fraction. What comfort has a growing boy, 



