Breeding and Management of Horses on a Farm. 
533 
purpose of preserving as long as possible the pliable state of the 
hoofs, and preventing them from cracking, they should be brushed 
over every second or third day with a mixture of equal weights of 
tar and tallow melted together, and the soles should be stopped 
every night with soft cow-dung, which should be picked out when 
dry. Farm-servants will never pay this attention to their horses 
without the superintendence of the master, and it is very rarely 
that a cart-horse has his feet cleaned, except when he goes to be 
shod. With him the stopping of the feet is not a matter in general 
of such importance as with the hunter or road-horse, as nineteen 
stables out of twenty that are allotted to the teams are neither very 
frequently nor very sedulously cleaned out, and the horses are 
therefore at most times standing upon wet litter of some kind, 
which serves to keep the feet moist. This, however, is an erro- 
neous system of management, as I shall presently explain, and is 
frequently a fruitful source of disease among horses, the amount 
of litter converted into manure by being suffered to remain long in 
the stable in no wise compensating for the injurious effects pro- 
duced by the efiluvia arising from it. A reformation in this system 
of neglect would no doubt tend to the advantage of the farmer in 
the long run, but, except in some instances, is scarcely to be ex- 
pected, both from the disinclination of carters to take what they 
consider unnecessary care of their teams, and from the habit that 
farmers in general have acquired of giving themselves as little 
trouble with respect to them as may be. 
From the age of three to four years the cart and carriage colts 
bred upon a farm may generally do most of the light work of the 
farmer's business, care being taken that the latter, as they ap- 
proach the period when they are to be sent to some horse-fair for 
sale, be neither worked too hard nor allowed from any other 
cause to fall off in condition. The larcre breeder of horses wiU 
find his advantage in procuring, if possible, a man to look after 
them who has been accustomed in some measure to the craft of a 
dealer's stable. Such a man will well know the usual means 
adopted for improving the appearance of the animals entrusted 
to him, by trimming, singeing, pulling the manes and tails, &c. ; 
and the extra expense, if any, of his wages will generally be com- 
pensated by the additional sum which a horse properly prepared 
lor the eye of the dealer will generally bring. 
I shall now proceed to notice those points of stable manage- 
ment, from the period when the young horse is first permanently 
taken up from grass, which are essentially necessary to his health 
and well-being, and explain in as familiar a manner as I am able 
those physiological facts upon which they should be based, a 
want of attention to and knowledge of which may frequently 
retard improvement, if not actually engender disease. 
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