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CATTLE AND HORSE INSURANCE. 
What is the average length of the life of horses, dividing them 
into the following classes ; viz. 
1. Horses used for agriculture exclusively. 
2. Ditto for ditto, and occasionally for other purposes, not being 
for posting, omnibuses, cabs, &c. 
3. Ditto, carriage horses, and such as are used for riding, not 
being posters, hired hacks, butchers’ horses, &c. 
4. Ditto, hunters and stallions. 
5. Ditto, mares of the different classes. 
6. What is the average rate of mortality among the different 
classes above mentioned 1 
7. What are the most prevalent diseases ? 
8. What are the most fatal ? 
9. To what diseases are young horses particularly subject? 
10. Under and above what ages ought we to insure our horses? 
11. At what rate per cent, may the different species of horses 
be replaced, whatever has been the injury to which they have 
been exposed ? 
Taking a rapid sketch of these things, alphabetically arranged, 
we meet with the following interesting papers : 
The first is from Mr. Baker, of Reigate. 
He says that horses used for agricultural purposes exclusively 
are certainly the longest lived, many of them attaining a great 
age, and being capable of performing their required labour with 
health to themselves as well as profit to their owners. Few animals 
thus employed, and fairly used, die under fifteen years; and 
the average may with much truth be stated from this period to 
twenty years. 
He has not found much difference in those lighter-bred horses 
that may be occasionally used for other purposes, such as being 
ridden to market, or drawing in the cart, and other light work on 
the road or connected with farming pursuits : he considers, there- 
fore, that the same average may be taken with these. 
The carriage horse, and those which are used for riding, suffer 
more from the wanton caprice of wilful man, and thus have their 
career of usefulness and life shortened to an average period of 
perhaps ten or twelve years. 
Hunters are still more liable to have their powers taxed beyond 
the limits of humanity, for which reason they decline proportion- 
ately early in life, and generally not numbering more than ten or 
fewer summers. 
Stallions live to a much more advanced age. 
“ I have been recalling to mind,” says Mr. Baker, “ several cases 
of longevity that have come under my notice during my practice, 
