TREATMENT ON A JOURNEY. 71 



and eight or ten bundles of fodder, llth. Let his 

 hoofs be nicely cleaned out and stuffed with fresh cow 

 manure ; this application keeps them tough, moist, and 

 cool. 12th. Change your food as often as possible, care- 

 fully avoiding using any that is new, or just gathered. 

 ( )bserve the above rules to your journey's end, except 

 your horse should prove a great feeder, and in that 

 case you may indulge him a little ; but the quantity 1 

 have here recommended, is enough for any common 

 horse when travelling. It may not be amiss to remind 

 the young traveller to inspect his horse's shoes once a 

 day, and whatever appears amiss about them to have 

 immediately rectified. It frequently happens that the 

 skin of young horses, unaccustomed to travel, is chafed 

 and scalded by the friction of the girth; the part, 

 washed clean with a little soap and water, and then 

 washed with a little salt and water, will immediately 

 cure and toughen the skin. 



It often happens at little baiting places or country 

 taverns, (met with on the road by travellers,) that 

 towards the end of harvest, servants are apt to feed 

 with green oats or wheat, in consequence of the scar- 

 city of fodder, unless otherwise directed; food of this 

 kind is poison to a travelling horse, and will produce a 

 diarrhoea and extreme debility. It would be much 

 better he should not have long food for two weeks, 

 than to give it to him green from the field. When 

 persons travelling are not attentive to their horses, 

 they are frequently given mouldy oats and corn, which 

 is productive of the worst effects ; there being but few 

 kinds of food that can be given a horse, that will ter- 

 minate his existence more speedily. Many of those 

 valuable animals have been destroyed by such means, 

 when the owners have been frequently at a loss to know 

 with what disease or from what cause they had died. 



