2 1 8 THR O UGH ST A BLE AND SADDLE-R O OM. 



may fairly be assumed to be ready for clipping. If 

 a horse is clipj)ed too soon, he will never have the 

 same appearance as if the proper time is waited for, 

 and it will be a source of trouble all the winter 

 through. 



It is a custom in some stables, and a good one 

 too, never to clip horses, but to begin singeing 

 them down early in the autumn directly they begin 

 to show any signs of thickening, and to keep on 

 doing this constantly through the winter. By such 

 means, though joerhaps more troublesome, a horse's 

 coat is kept in as perfect a state as it can well be 

 under the circumstances, and I am convinced that 

 it is the best way of keeping a winter coat 

 down. 



As I have remarked in a former chapter, there 

 are two kinds of singeing-lamps — that for use with 

 gas and that for naphtha — and I there stated my 

 reasons for preferring the use of the latter, as it is 

 less likely to burn a horse, and burns the hair more 

 steadily and thoroughly than the fiercer flame of 

 the gas ; but whichever description of lamp may 

 be used, either of them requires to be constantly 

 attended to and cleared. The naphtha is more 

 troublesome in this respect than the gas, and the 

 wick requires to be shifted now and again. It is, 

 moreover, necessary that when a groom is singeing 



