258 STABLE ECONOMY. 



ing condition. He becomes weak and short-winded, whether 

 he have much or little food. 



There are no other real objections, unless it be one that the 

 horse is liable to receive the bot-worm into his stomach ; but 

 this has never been urged against grazing. 



One party has magnified f or rather multiplied, the virtues, 

 and another the evil of a summer's run. Pastured hunters, 

 it is said, are liable to kicks, sprains, and other injuries, in 

 playing or quarrelling with their neighbors ; that the feet are 

 often injured by stamping the ground when it is hard, and the 

 flies irritating ; that splints and ringbones are sometimes pro- 

 duced in the same way ; that the act of grazing is pernicious 

 to the back-tendons ; that broken-wind, roaring, and exces- 

 sive emaciation, have been the results of a summer's run. But 

 these are not the necessary consequences of turning out ; they 

 are merely accidents arising from mismanagement or want of 

 care. Some of the alleged evils have no existence. Ring- 

 bone, if ever produced at grass, is the result of inattention to 

 the feet, and splints do no more harm by appearing while the 

 horse is at pasture than if he were stabled. They would 

 come whether or not. It has never been proved that grazing 

 injures the back-tendons. 



The pages of the sporting periodicals abound with what 

 are called arguments, or what is meant for argument, for and 

 against grazing hunters. With the exceptions to which I 

 have briefly alluded, nothing has come under my notice wor- 

 thy of particular attention. Enough has been written, if it be 

 measured by quantity ; but writers on stable affairs are, in 

 general, not very good writers. They tell stories which nei- 

 ther interest nor instruct, neither refute nor confirm. In 

 truth, they are often entirely destitute of any connexion with 

 the subject of discussion. There are numerous accounts of 

 horses gv^ing to grass without fault, and returning with dis- 

 ease, or acquiring disease soon afterward. The circumstance 

 is supposed to be conclusive in favor of the in-door system. 

 On the other side, similar tales are told of horses not doing 

 well in the house. They reason like children. If they see 

 two things at the same time, they immediately believe that 

 one is the cause of the other. If a horse die, or fall lame, 

 while getting grass, that, and nothing else, was the cause. If 

 a hunter die that had got no grass, no physic, nor any alter- 

 ative medicine, the want of one or other is the reason he dies. 



If a horse could be kept in hunting condition while at 

 grass, o: prepared without hazard, and in time to follow 



